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SAMUEL CHAPMAN ARMSTRONG 





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Samuel Chapman Armstrong 



A BIOGRAPHICAL STUDY 



By 



EDITH ARMSTRONG TALBOT 




NEW YORK 

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 

1904 






•/^ 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Tw* Caples Received 

JAN 29 1904 



^' 



Copyright Entry 
§ «.^' XXo. No. 



Copyright, 1904, by 

Edith A. Talbot 

Published, January, 1904 



PREFACE 

This brief outline of my father's life, work and 
character is written in the hope that it may be 
read not only by those who knew him, but by those 
to whom the name of Samuel Armstrong suggests 
no personal memories. 

The scenes amid which he moved in his early 
life have already become unreal in the dimness of a 
historic past; many of the problems with which 
he struggled are solved ; even in the ten years which 
have elapsed since his death such a change has 
come over Negro affairs that their earlier aspects 
are almost forgotten. To reanimate these bygone 
conditions and difficulties which he daily con- 
fronted, and more than all to show in the midst 
of many intricate activities the man himself, an 
embodiment of life and aspiration combating by 
sheer determination all discouragement and hesi- 
tancy — this is my aim. 

This aim alone justifies a disregard of his especial 
request that no biography of himself should be 
written. He read many biographies. Some of 
them he liked and received from them help and 
encouragement, while others impressed him as 
"pretty good stories" written by "kind friends" 
to perpetuate agreeable personal memories. He 

V 



vi. Preface 

greatly feared that such treatment would be given 
him when he was no longer able to defend himself; 
to be canonized was a fate that he really dreaded. 
Nevertheless, he felt the value of the simple and 
sincere story of a useful life ; and had he thought that 
the telling of his own life-story would strengthen a 
single impulse for good or encourage a single 
struggler, he would have cordially assented to the 
telling of it. Remembering his preferences, I have 
omitted such details of his personal life as satisfy 
a merely curious interest. 

I wish to express my thanks first of all to my 
husband; to Doctor Talcott Williams, Professor 
LeBaron R. Briggs, Colonel T. W. Higginson, Mr. 
Robert C. Ogden, Mr. BHss Perry, General O. O. 
Howard, Mr. Herbert Welsh, and Reverend H. B. 
Frissell, for their kind and generous interest in 
this book, as well as to those who have lent their 
treasured letters for publication. 

Edith Armstrong Talbot. 



CONTENTS 



Chapter 

I Hawaiian Life. 1839-1860 . 

II Williams College. 1860-1862 

III Life in the Army. 1862-1865 

IV Life in the Army — Continued . 

V The Freedmen's Bureau. 1866-1 

VI The Beginnings of Hampton 

VII At Hampton. 1870-1890 

VIII In the North. 1870-1890 

IX The Negro and the South 

X Work for the Indian . 

XI Last Years. 1893 . 



872 



Pagb 

3 

41 
62 
96 

133 
154 
181 
218 

257 
27s 
291 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

Samuel Chapman Armstrong . . . Fnntistiect 

Facing Page 

Birthplace of Samuel Chapman Armstrong on the 

Island of Maui, Hawaiian Islands . . 8 
The entrance to Stone House at Honolulu . . 14 
Family group — Samuel Chapman Armstrong at 

the age of 18 . . . . . .22 

Samuel Chapman Armstrong at the age of 20 . 40 
Samuel Chapman Armstrong as Lieutenant-Colonel 

of the Ninth United States Colored Troops 96 
Samuel Chapman Armstrong — taken about the 

time of his sojourn at the officers' hospital 

at Hampton, Va. , . . . . .118 
A group of friends at Hampton in Freedmen's 

Bureau times — Armstrong in the center 
Samuel Chapman Armstrong at the age of 28 
Academic Hall — erected 1869 and destroyed by 

fire November 9, 1879 .... 

General Armstrong — 1880 ..... 
Virginia Hall — erected 1872 
Mansion House in 1872 — General Armstrong's 

home — foundations of Virginia Hall to the 

right 

Mansion House after improvements in 1886 
Medallion of Samuel Chapman Armstrong made in 

1 90 1 by Theo. A. Ruccles-Kitson 
Samuel Chapman Armstrong .... 



y 



132 




154 




172 


,/ 


180 




184 


-' 


196 


/' 


198 


/ 


218 


/ 


254 


/ 



PART I 

SAMUEL CHAPMAN ARMSTRONG 



SAMUEL CHAPMAN ARMSTRONG 

CHAPTER I 
Hawaiian Life. 1839-1860 

The history of a man's childhood is the description of his 
parents and environment. — Carlyle. 

SAMUEL CHAPMAN ARMSTRONG was fortu- 
nate in both parentage and environment. He 
was born January 30, 1839, on the island of 
Maui, Hawaiian Islands, and brought up amid the 
soft airs and noble scenery of that beautiful tropical 
archipelago. Maui contains one of the most striking 
natural features of the group, the extinct crater of 
Haleakala, which thrusts its head into the clouds 
10,000 feet above the sea-level, and on the grassy 
slopes of this mountain, overlooking the island and 
the surrounding sea, was his birthplace and the home 
of his parents, Richard and Clarissa Armstrong, mis- 
sionaries to the Hawaiians. Although the family 
remained in Maui but a year after his birth, he always 
retained a peculiar fondness for it, returning to it 
often as a boy for horseback rambles among its 
forests and gorges. He gloried in its splendid peaks 
and coasts ; and about Haleakala (the House of the 
Sun) centered in later life his thoughts of rest and 
inspiration. 

3 



4 Samoel Chapman Armstrong 

The Armstrongs were people of the pioneer type, 
fitted to enter into unbroken fields and prepare 
them for later f ruitf ulness ; full of strength ; able to 
endure and to hand down their power of endurance 
to their children. 

The father came of Scotch-Irish parentage, and 
was reared in central Pennsylvania, in that whole- 
some farm life from which have sprung so many 
men of power. Rather delicate in health, he was 
regarded as predestined for the ministry, and when 
of the proper age entered Princeton Theological Sem- 
inary. While there he became convinced that his 
work lay in the mission field, and spent his vacations 
and spare time studying medicine in Philadelphia in 
order to prepare himself more fully for this work. 
On applying to the American Board of Commis- 
sioners for Foreign Missions for a position in the 
Hawaiian Islands, he was accepted by them and 
prepared to assume his new duties at the earliest 
opportunity. About this time — in March, 1830 — he 
wrote home: 



"Perhaps you may be somewhat surprised at the 
course I have chosen, and will be ready to ask, 'Why 
not preach among the destitute at home.'" In answer 
to this I would say that the choice is not my own; it 
appears to be marked out for me by Him whom I am 
bound to serve forever. The American Board wish 
to send out twenty missionaries in eighteen months. 
Most likely I shall be one of them. Then farewell, 
America, and farewell earthly enjoyments." 



Hawaiian Life* J839-J860 $ 

The farewell to earthly enjoyments, however, 
was preceded by a happy event which, with the 
completion of medical and theological courses, 
marked the last few months of his stay in America. 
In September he was married to Clarissa Chapman, 
of Blandford, Massachusetts. 

Clarissa Chapman had been reared in the same 
plain farm life to which he himself was accustomed, 
and was endowed with a fine physique and many 
practical aptitudes. She wrote of her own early 
life: 

"In those days women did their own housework, 
and it was thought disgraceful to be lazy or untidy. 
Daughters worked with their mothers and sons with 
their fathers. The spinning of wool and flax and tow, 
the knitting and weaving by the fire while one read 
aloud, and the singing of sacred hymns, were the 
pleasures. I learned to do all kinds of household work, 
and also often assisted my father, who was crippled by 
rheumatism, in the care of the cows and sheep — an 
experience for which in my years of wandering I have 
often had occasion to be deeply thankful." 

But she had parents who saw in their daughter 
possibilities of something more than routine farm 
work, and who, in spite of the scoffing of neigh- 
bours, sent her away to be educated. When she met 
Richard Armstrong she had been graduated from 
the Westfield (Massachusetts) Normal School, partly 
through her own efforts, partly through the help 
her parents were able to give her, and was holding 
a position as teacher in a Pestalozzian Infant 



6 Samuel Chapman Armstrong 

School in Brooklyn, New York, one of the earliest 
of schools to introduce from Germany the educa- 
tional ideas whose later developments found expres- 
sion in the kindergarten. 

She was looking f or^vard cheerfully to the unevent- 
ful life of a teacher, when Richard Armstrong, 
vivacious, impassioned, and demonstrative, a true 
Irishman and her very antithesis, captured her 
heart and persuaded her that the Divine call to 
which he had listened was addressed to her also. 
Neither dreamed that the future held worldly 
success and influence for them; it was the love of 
God and a desire for the coming of His kingdom 
that alone gave them courage as they set sail west- 
ward on board the brig Thaddeiis on a dark Novem- 
ber day in 1831. Mutiny on board the ship, and, 
owing to head winds and consequent delay, a lack 
of provisions, made the voyage a severe tax on the 
endurance of the young bride and groom; the only 
pleasant incident recorded by Mrs. Armstrong in 
her journal of this voyage is the stop for repairs at 
Rio Janeiro. Of this she wrote : 

"How delightful, it was! The green grass, the fresh 
fruits ! It was indeed paradise ; but the trail of the 
serpent was there. On an open space I saw a long 
trail of black men, miserably clad, chained together, 
while beside them were others with great bags of coffee 
on their heads, chanting a mournful lay. From that 
day my sympathies went out to the poor slaves every- 
where, but little did I think I should live to rear a son 



Hawaiian Life. J 839- J 860 7 

who should lead the freedmen to victory in the great 
contest which should come in future years." 

At last Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong reached the port 
of Honolulu in safety and began their work of 
preaching and teaching there. 

At the end of a year, in which a daughter was 
born to them, they were sent on a dangerous mis- 
sion to the Marquesas Islands, inhabited by canni- 
bals, where they lived a year in friendliest relation 
to these fierce folk, and succeeded in holding in 
check their cannibal habits. Here their second 
child, who lived but a short time, was born. That 
husband and wife were made of hardy stuff is shown 
by the fact that Mr. Armstrong, when compelled 
to return to Honolulu for a short time, left his wife, 
infant son,* and little daughter in charge of a 
cannibal chief, who was, as Mrs. Armstrong noted 
in a letter, "indescribably horrible in appearance," 
but who guarded them in safety for weeks by lying 
in front of their tent every night. 

Owing to its peculiar difficulties they were unable 
to make permanent impressions at this post, and 
foreseeing reversion to cannibal habits, were recalled 
to Honolulu, only to be sent away in a few days to 
the island of Maui, a distance of three days' joiimey 
by water from Honolulu. 

Here was a more promising field for labour. 
Maui was a thickly settled, fertile district, inhabited 

*Bom while in the Marquesas Islands, and named by the 
parents after their ferocious friend, Hapi. 



8 Samuel Chapman Armstrong: 

by a gentle, willing people who flocked gladly to 
listen to their new teacher. Here Richard Armstrong 
remained for seven years, and here his peculiar 
administrative powers found full play. Besides 
the duties of his pastorate, he assumed the medical 
oversight of his flock of 25,000 natives and the 
organization and superintendence of schools for 
1,700 children. He saw the need of steady indus- 
trial occupation for the natives, and it was through 
him that the first sawmills and sugar plantations 
on the island of Maui were started. He foresaw 
the need of diversified crops, and instructed the 
natives in the first principles of tilling the land, which 
had been heretofore untouched by them, since their 
simple desires were satisfied with its natural fruits. 
His son Samuel writes later of this time : 

"[My father] used to tell us of the two churches 
that he built here, one over each [missionary] station, 
each to hold 1,500 people. He planned and super- 
intended the whole work without any carpenter. The 
timbers of the roof were hewn far up on the mountains, 
brought down on the backs of natives, and placed on 
walls of broken stone laid in mortar made from coral 
brought up from the sea by native divers. Once, 
when a storm destroyed the work of months, the people, 
led by their chief, went wilHngly to the mountains and 
began again. Although my father nearly broke down 
here, yet afterward, when in the service of the Govern- 
ment, he spoke of these as the happiest days of his life, 
for his own hardships were forgotten in remembering 
how gladly the people heard and, in their weakness, 
followed like children." 



Hawaiian Life. J 839- J 860 9 

While the Armstrongs were at Maui a strange 
incident of history occurred, and one in which they 
themselves bore no small part. For twenty years 
the Hawaiian people had been listening patiently 
to the teachings of Christian missionaries, many 
becoming converts; but no impression was made 
on the mass of the people till the years 1838 and 
1839, when a series of waves of religious enthusiasm 
swept the whole nation, as it were, into the Christian 
fold in a day. Rulers, chiefs, and people resigned 
their heathen beliefs, asking only to be taught the 
law of Christ. 

During the great revival Richard and Clarissa 
Armstrong worked with all their might to secure 
and intensify good results. If any were skeptical 
of the value of this hothouse Christianity they were 
not of them, and, like the Church at home, they 
regarded the conversion of numbers as the proof of 
missionary success. While the husband and father 
addressed great meetings, the wife and mother, in 
spite of the care of her five children and her 
prospect of again becoming a mother, found time 
and strength to gather the women about her 
nightly and exhort them earnestly to a better life, 
or to address large audiences when occasion de- 
manded. Who shall say that her son was not 
influenced by that time of spiritual upheaval in 
the midst of which he was born? 

Richard Armstrong's years at Maui had revealed 
to the American Board of Commissioners for 



lo Samttel Chapman Armstrong: 

Foreign Missions, who stood in loco parentis to the 
missionaries in the field, his administrative skill, 
and in 1840 he was moved from Maui to Honolulu 
and installed in charge of the First Church, attended 
by a large native congregation. 

In order to understand the influences that sur- 
rounded Samuel Armstrong's childhood, one must 
glance at the history of the relation between the 
plastic, pleasure-loving native and the stem New 
England teacher, who would have about him equal 
rights for all and a wholesome theory of sober and 
righteous living, based, perhaps, rather on New 
England than on tropical conditions. The period 
of 1820 to 1840 had been throughout a period of 
great change for the Hawaiian people. They had 
gradually embraced Christianity, established courts 
of justice, granted universal suffrage with slight 
property qualifications, established a system of 
schools throughout the islands so that in 1835 the 
natives who could read and write were numbered 
by thousands, and passed laws against drinking, 
gambling. Sabbath-breaking, and social vice which 
would have done credit to a New England village 
and which were at times enforced. These changes, 
which the Anglo-Saxon race has been himdreds of 
years in making, were consummated in twenty by 
the aid of the second and third Kamchamehas, 
whose beneficent rule culminated in the year 1839 
in the passage of a bill of rights which established 
the right of the common people to hold land, a 



Hawaiian Life. J839-t860 ii 

right heretofore the prerogative of kings and chiefs, 
and the Hberty to worship how and where they 
would. These rulers, themselves fairly attentive 
hearers of the words of the missionaries, were the 
first to embrace Christianity and to teach it to 
their people. 

But however zealous the chiefs and however 
zealous the people, the improvement in manners 
and morals among the natives did not keep pace 
with the improvement in civil government and 
forms of worship. The King, followed by chiefs 
and people, wavered between the good influences 
that in the main governed their public course and 
the temptations of their sensual Polynesian natures. 
In a land where fish, fruit and the taro could be had 
with little toil, habits of industry were not indis- 
pensable to happiness. Like the old-time Negroes, 
they made their religion their chief business in life ; 
like them, they delighted in "speaking in meeting," 
and were born orators; but they found a strict 
adherence to the Ten Commandments on week- 
days rather burdensome. "The heathen saint is 
about up to your New England sinner," as Arm- 
strong remarked later. Where one-roomed huts, 
with perhaps a curtain for the guest, were the 
rule, no high standard of social morality could 
be expected. 

To complicate the problem of dealing justly and 
effectively with this simple people, drink, vice, and 
diseases heretofore unknown in Hawaii were being 



12 Samoel Chapman Atmstfong: 

introduced by the crews of whaling vessels. More- 
over, the beauty, fertility and commercial advan- 
tages of these islands had from the first attracted 
scheming men, sometimes working in the name of 
a foreign government, sometimes independently, 
but always for the furtherance of their own plans. 
The governments of Great Britain and France saw 
the advantage to the United States in the political 
ascendency of the missionaries and strove to coim- 
teract it at court and among the people, each 
through its agents attempting by force to gain 
possession of the islands. Many Americans also, 
opposed to the aims of the missionaries, and fore- 
seeing in their control possible hindrances to 
their own plans, allied themselves with the anti- 
missionary party. 

It is a curious fact in the history of the Hawaiian 
Islands that a group of men, originally non-political 
in their relations to the natives, should have become 
allied closely with the governing forces. Church and 
state were never more completely one than in 
Hawaii under missionary influence. There are 
many instances in the history of heathen countries 
of dishonest and ambitious white men who have 
played on the vices of native rulers to further their 
own selfish ends, but few, if any, except in Hawaii, 
of white men of a high type who have accepted 
responsible positions in the king's gift and worked 
with and through him for his people. In the 
Hawaiian Islands the highest political positions, 



Hawaiian Life. J 839- 1860 13 

such as Minister of Finance and of Public Instruc- 
tion, were filled by missionaries. It was into a 
complicated political and social situation that 
Richard Armstrong found himself transferred by 
his removal to Honolulu. 

He began his work simply as a preacher, but 
his interests and ability soon drew him (in 1840) 
into public life, though he never gave up his public 
preaching, partly in deference to the wishes of the 
Missionary Board, who did not encourage much 
devotion to secular affairs, and partly because he 
wished to retain a direct hold on the natives.* 

Samuel's childhood, like the prime of his father's 
life, was spent in the midst of the clash of political 
parties, but he grew up all unconscious of it. To 
him the conversion of the natives and the fatherly 
kindness and self-sacrifice shown by the missionary 
teachers appeared dominant, and if he thought of 



*At the time of his death the reigning king, Kamehameha, 
wrote describing his services to the natives as follows'. 

" Doctor Armstrong has been spoken of as Minister of Public 
Instruction and subsequently President of the Board of Educa- 
tion, but we have only partly described the Important offices 
which he filled. He was a member of the House of Nobles 
and of the King's Privy Council, Secretary of the Board of 
Trustees of Oahu College, Trustee of the Queen's Hospital, 
executive officer of the Bible and Tract Society, and deeply 
interested in developing the agricultural resources of the king- 
dom. 

"No other government officer or missionary was brought 
into such close intimacy with the native as a whole. Although 
his week-day duties were so abundant and onerous, he never 
spared himself as a minister of the Gospel. He was an eloquent 
preacher in the Hawaiian language, and was always listened to 
with deep interest by the people in whose welfare he took so 
deep an interest. Nearly every Sabbath his voice was to be 
heard in some one of the pulpits of the land." 



14 Samuel Chapman Armstrong 

their opposers, it was as bad men representing 
Satan in the world, with whom he need not hold 
any intercourse. So the missionary children, a 
colony large enough for play independent of other 
Caucasian youngsters who might be about, enjoyed 
themselves in their own little world. 

Honolulu in 1840 was a small town with a cluster 
of mercantile houses and grog-shops, where fifty 
to a hundred whalers called annually for supplies, 
and where some commerce in sandalwood was still 
carried on. 

A little way back from the water, toward 
the mountains, were the mission houses, built 
of adobe or wood, the houses of the higher 
chiefs, and the old palace where the Kamehamehas 
reigned in a sort of opera-bouffe grandeur. The 
town boasted but two other buildings of impor- 
tance — a brick schoolhouse for the children of 
foreign residents, and Richard Armstrong's church, 
the Kawaiahao, a great coral-built edifice then in 
process of erection. 

The Armstrong home, "Stone House," was one 
of the pleasantest in Honolulu; set well back in a 
fine grove and garden, it sheltered comfortably the 
eight children who grew to manhood and woman- 
hood there. 

Samuel Armstrong's brightest recollections of 
his home centered in his merry, blue-eyed father, 
who had always a smile and a caress for the clus- 
tering young ones— " silent, tranquil, patient, and 




THE ENTRANCE TO STONE HOUSE AT HONOLULU 



Hawaiian Life. J 839- J 860 15 

loving," as one of the younger children describes 
him; alert, wiry, always busy, he carried on all his 
duties with a light heart. All the mission children 
loved him, and he was the first to gather them into 
a class for the purpose of learning the Hawaiian 
language — a step which was regarded with suspicion 
by many of the mission mothers, who feared lest 
knowledge of the Hawaiian tongue might bring their 
boys into too close contact with that easy-going 
native life which represented to their minds such 
fearful laxity of morals. But Richard Armstrong 
was less afraid that the young people would be 
contaminated by contact with the Hawaiians than 
that they should fail to imderstand that race with 
which they were to have to deal in the future, and 
so in spite of the frowns of the mothers the class 
went on. 

Stone House might have been a rendezvous for 
the missionary children were it not for a certain 
awe which Mrs. Armstrong unconsciously inspired 
as she moved with stately dignity about her work. 
Her tmsmiling mien constrained them and they 
went elsewhere for their little games. It was 
a stem household, where the rod was not spared, 
and where many instincts, now called natural, 
were, after the manner of the day, repressed. But 
in it justice, truth and respect for duty were thor- 
oughly inculcated. Both parents had been trained 
in other households, where right was put before 
pleasure, and both had encountered such stress in 



i6 Samuel Chapman Armsttong: 

life that moral strength appeared to them the 
greatest need of the growing mind. 

Mrs. Armstrong's serious manner was the result 
not only of a certain Puritan habit of repression, but 
of an intense moral earnestness. Besides the care 
of her large family, she was deeply interested in 
work for the native Hawaiians. She conducted 
sewing and Bible classes, and gathered about her 
the lowest outcasts of Chinatown, urging the 
women to leave their lives of sin. Her training in 
the science of education gave her a peculiar interest 
in matters pertaining to the home and to women 
and children, and to them she mainly devoted her 
energies. "She was a worker," said one who knew 
her well at this time; "her great characteristic 
was to do her work truthfully and well and to 
seize on opportunities." 

In such a home-setting one can imagine little 
Samuel barefooted, clad in faded blue denim, 
among his crowd of brothers and sisters and play- 
mates, blond and slim, full of his father's fun, 
with long, shaggy hair tossed back from dancing 
eyes, rushing in and out of the water after his little 
boats, to make and sail which was the greatest 
delight of Honolulu boys, with their facilities of 
reef-locked harbour and constant trade-wind. As 
marbles, chess, and cards were not allowed, 
and as football was imknown, baseball (in which 
Samuel was never proficient), swimming, sailing 
and riding were the sports among boys, followed, 



Hawaiian Life. J 839- J 860 17 

as the players advanced from the age of blue denim 
trousers into that of great care for neckties, by 
choir practice, debating clubs, and horseback 
rides by night. There were glorious dashes over 
the moonlit sands, twenty or thirty couples of boys 
and girls abreast, when the game was to have one 
extra man, then break the ranks and let all try 
for a place in the line with one of the girls. There 
were week-long excursions and upward dashes to 
the cool mountain-tops, where the cataracts had 
their birth and whence one could overlook the ocean 
rising on all sides to the level of the eye like a great 
blue saucer. "He was a high-spirited youth," says 
one who knew yoimg Armstrong well in those 
times, "with an abrupt manner of looking up, 
shaking his hair from his eyes. He used to say 
that he would be a politician or a business man — 
that he would be a philanthropist was the furthest 
from our thoughts." 

His childhood and boyhood are best described 
in his own words, written in a chapter of reminis- 
cences by him some forty years later, in which the 
circumstances of that far-away childhood appear 
more idyllic for the lapse of years. 

"For several summers after our arrival in Honolulu 
we spent some months at Makawao, high up on Halea- 
kala, at Mr. McLane's sugar plantation, where the 
view of mountain and ocean was magnificent. Here 
donkey-riding, eating sugar-cane, hanging round the 
sugar-house, bathing in the deep gulches, and exploring 



i8 Samuel Chapman Afmstfong 

the wild country and tropic forests filled what were 
the happiest days of our lives. How exciting it was 
when we were pulled round into Maalea Bay in whale- 
boats or sailed in the Maria, and Captain Hobson, 
in default of a white flag, sent one of father's shirts up 
to the masthead, to announce the arrival of a mis- 
sionary party. With our belongings we were piled 
into ox-carts, and after five hours' slow pulling up 
the sides of Haleakala would at last reach 'Makawao,' 
to be greeted by the smiling Hawaiian housewife, 
'Maile.' In those days the natives brought their 
kumu (teacher) their accustomed tribute of fruit, 
vegetables, chickens, etc., thus eking out the small 
salary of (I believe) $300 for each couple and $50 extra 
for each child. Those were days of cheerful greetings, 
youthful rejoicings, and fatherly benedictions, when 
the people came — in a minimum of costume — from 
far and near with bananas, sugar-cane, guavas, cocoa- 
nuts, and delicious ohia. 

"The large crop of small boys that swarmed about 
the mission had the usual piratical instincts of their 
kind, and although we were all subjected to the severest 
Puritanic discipline, we managed to execute occasional 
raids on the barrel of lump sugar in the mission deposi- 
tory when good Mr. Cooke and Mr. Castle were not 
looking. The 'Maternal Association' took up the 
more hopeless cases of those who played checkers or 
said * By George ! ' The boys were thrown into con- 
vulsions when one of our number reported hearing an 
excited missionary father say *By Jingo!' 

"We had one real luxury — that of being barefooted 
all the year round, wearing shoes on Sunday only, and 
then under protest. The Sunday morning cleaning- 
up and dressing was looked forward to with dread, 
as our sympathies were all with the natives, who, in 



Hawaiian Life. J839-J860 19 

the early days, took off their clothes when it rained, 
so that a shower as church was closing produced an 
extraordinary scene. The material of our usual gar- 
ments was a blue denim of the cheapest kind, which, 
to allow for the growth of the wearer, was made with 
two or three tucks in the trousers legs. These being 
successively let out after many washings, made a series 
of humiliating bright blue bands about our ankles. 
I can remember wearing aprons, which I took every 
opportunity to discard, although I invariably came 
to grief from so doing, as the rod in those days was 
laid on freely. 

" Molasses-and- water was bliss to us, and ginger- 
cake was too good to be true. . . . We went 
barefoot, we were hungry, and felt the ferule about 
our hands and shoulders, and had our lunches stolen 
by the other himgry boys, and had prayer meeting 
out among the rocks, and learned seven honest verses 
by heart for Sunday-school, besides the catechism at 
home. The small boy of to-day tries to be a gentle- 
man, which we never dreamed of; our ambition was, 
after getting out of sight of home, to throw away our 
last vestment — ^the checked apron fastened around 
our necks by fond mothers — and then in native rollick- 
ing freedom delight in sea, in salt ponds and wild 
mountains. 

"We went to Mr. Castle's Sunday-school and also 
to the 'Bethel.' We were required to recite seven 
Bible verses to Mr. Castle, and to bow as we went out, 
which later ceremony was particularly obnoxious to 
us and gave rise to much cutting-up. I was a pupil at 
the ' Bethel ' of General Marshall and Mr. C. R. Bishop, 
and from them received my first instruction in 'Let 
dogs delight to bark and bite,' etc. 

"Father's chief work was preaching, and I am sorry 



20 Samuel Chapman Armstrong 

to say that, although we always attended the services, 
the part we took in them was sometimes far from 
creditable. We usually sat with mother, and were 
kept quiet by frequent gingerbread, but I remember 
that once father took two of us into the pulpit and was 
obliged to interrupt his sermon in order to settle a 
quarrel between us. But nothing disturbed the equa- 
nimity of the natives, not even the dog-fights, which 
were of frequent occurrence, for they doted on dogs, 
often bringing them to church in their arms, while the 
children toddled on behind. 

"These dogs were a perpetual trial. I have seen 
deacons with long sticks probing after the wretched 
curs as they dodged under the seats, the preacher 
scolding roundly the while, and not a smile in the 
congregation. 

"But the services were interesting. Sometimes 
when I stand outside a Negro church I get precisely 
the effect of a Hawaiian congregation, the same fulness 
and heartiness and occasional exquisite voices, and 
am instantly transplanted 10,000 miles away, to the 
great Kawaiahao church where father used to preach 
to 2,500 people, who swarmed in on foot and horse- 
back from shore and valley and mountain for many 
miles around. 

"Outside it was like an encampment; inside it was 
a sea of dusky faces. On one side was the King's 
pew, with scarlet hangings; the royal family always 
distinguishing themselves by coming in very late, 
with the loudest of squeaking shoes. The more the 
shoes squeaked the better was the wearer pleased, 
and often a man, after walking noisily in, would sit 
down and pass his shoes through the window for 
his wife to wear in, thus doubling the family glory. 
Non-musical shoes were hardly salable. 



Hawaiian Life. J 839- J 860 21 

"One of my earliest and most vivid recollections is 
of moving into 'Stone House,' which was built of coral 
and stood at the foot of 'Punch Bowl,' an extinct 
crater, from the summit of which a royal battery of 
fifteen sixty-pounders often fired national salutes, 
which were answered by ships of war in the harbour 
below, making the windows and dishes rattle. Although 
the guns were all pointed in the air and could not by 
any possibility hurt anybody but the careless artillery- 
men, I thought the place impregnable. As a matter 
of fact, a couple of pirates could have captured the 
whole affair, for the garrison slept all night, and a half- 
dozen resolute midnight cats might have scared them 
into instantaneous surrender. 

"One of our great delights here was that we had 
plenty of white pine for making miniature ships, which 
we sailed in the salt ponds and in the quiet waters 
within the reef, and for sawing into blocks to represent 
soldiers, wherewith my brother Will and I had many 
a pitched battle in the garret. Our heroes were those 
of the Mexican war — just over — and we fired our powder 
and shot out of little leaden cannon. The necessity 
of earning our pocket money kept us on the lookout 
for profitable chances, but our fun was none the less 
joyful because we had to work for it. 

" Our herd of cattle, twelve in number, were quartered 
at night in the cow-pen in the back yard, the sucking 
calves being penned by themselves. Will, Baxter 
and I did the milking, for which father roused us every 
morning. There was no bringing up of calves by hand ; 
we had not even a bam; the herd was driven to the 
mountains and watched all day by a Kanaka cow- 
boy, who slept most of the time, and then were driven 
in at sundown, half wild and altogether unwilling to 
be milked. We did not get much milk per cow, and 



22 Samuel Chapman Armstrong 

spent a good deal of time in fierce combat with the calves. 
This did not meet the views of our American-bred 
parents, who gave us a series of alarming facts in regard 
to New England cows and the boys who milked them 
— abnormal boys who 'loved work.' I may say, indeed, 
that we were brought up on New England boys, and I 
can well remember the interest with which we watched 
the first importation into Honolulu of these marvels, 
and our delight when we discovered that they were 
even lazier than we were — that not one of them liked to 
get up early or preferred toil to play. Inspiration from 
that quarter, by which we had been so often shamed 
into laborious days, was thenceforth 'played out.' 
In the general mission cow-pen, much larger than 
ours, I used to think that I could tell to whom the cows 
belonged by their resemblance to their owners; in a 
few cases I was sure of this. We had no stables, and 
out in the wild pasture had to catch with the lasso 
every horse we rode; and everybody rode — men, women 
and children; the latter sometimes, as in our case, 
beginning humbly on calves and donkeys. The natives 
were passionately fond of riding, and would walk a 
mile to catch a horse to ride half a mile. The women 
bestrode horses like men, but with long scarfs of bril- 
liant calico draping either leg and streaming behind 
them in the breeze. Saturday was their gala day, 
and the streets were filled with gay cavalcades of happy 
Hawaiians. We played baseball, but not in the 
American fashion; and 'I spy' was a favorite game, 
especially when we could play it in the graveyard. 
Nothing, however, was more permanently popular than 
swimming in the great deep mountain-basins, of which 
Kapena Falls answered our purpose best. The great 
feat was to jump from the cUff, some forty feet, into 
the depths below, where we played like fishes. A 




FAMILY GROUP- SAMUEL CHAPMAN ARMSTRONG AT THE AGE OF i8 



Hawaiian Life. J839-J860 23 

horseback tour round the island of Oahu was a great 
lark, with the races on the long, lovely sea-beach and 
the nights at Kaneohe, Kualoa and Waialua. 

"My brother Baxter's cattle-ranch at Waimanalo 
was a favorite and beautiful resort; it was a little 
kingdom by the sea, bounded by the ocean and moun- 
tains. It was exciting to jump into a cattle-pen with 
a lasso and catch a young steer by the horns, while 
another lassoed his hind leg and a third pulled him over 
and branded him. In a few moments he was released, 
and then a race for the fence ensued to keep out of the 
way of his fury. Though we did this dozens of times, 
I do not think that any one of us was ever hurt." 

The boy kept a journal of his vacations from his 
twelfth to his eighteenth year, and from these a 
few extracts follow, written when he was twelve 
years of age, while taking a school-inspecting trip 
with his father. 

' ' July 15,1851, Left for Kau in a canoe. We went to 
Kealea and had a short meeting and then went on to 
Kaohe, where we slept. In the morning we had a look 
about the country; it was very green. The house 
where we slept was an excellent native house; it was 
clean and neat. 

"July 1 6th. Father examined some schools. A 
great many canoes came in. In the afternoon we started 
in the canoe for Kapua ; we arrived a little before sunset. 
This place is very rocky. They have some goats here. 

"July 17th, About three o'clock in the morning 
we started for Kau on foot. Father was sick, and so 
he rode an ox; it was very lazy indeed. Our road 
was rocky, especially the first part. During the latter 



24 Samuel Chapman Armstrongf 

part we went through large groves of trees. After a 
walk of about five and a half hours we arrived at a 
native house, where we had a little rest and then started 
on. The road was good and the walk was pleasant, only 
we were rather tired. There were several small grass 
houses along the road for people to sleep in who went 
on the road. When we got to the borders of Kau, 
father lay down and I and two native boys went ahead. 
We had gone some way when we met the horses. I 
took one and went on. I got to Kau about five o'clock. 
The rest of the company got there at six. Kau is a 
very green place. We have grapevines, figs, sugar- 
cane, potatoes, and many nice fruits. 

"July 2 2d. The native schools were examined. 
They study principally reading and arithmetic. In 
the afternoon we went up on the hill to slide. We had 
bananas to slide on. We would balance ourselves and 
then shoot down the hill like race-horses. 

"July 24th. We had goat for dinner. 

"July 25th. We had some presents from the natives 
of fish, kalo * and other things. We had some fun in 
the evening running races. 

"July 27th. Started for the volcano on horseback. 

"July 28th. The smoke of the volcano soon began 
to appear; also Mauna Loa. After we had gone several 
miles we came to the pahochoe, which is lava. We could 
distinguish the road for some way, but at last it got lost. 
A native came up and asked to be our guide. He took 
us away down in the woods and then up again. After 
a while we came in sight of the volcano ; it looked awful. 
We went on to the house and slept. 

"July 30th. We went down about noon and visited 
the volcano. There was not any fire. We got some 
strawberries." 

* Equivalent of taro. 



Hawaiian Life* J839-J860 25 

It was a childhood of almost ideal advantage 
for any man, but especially for Armstrong, in whose 
after-life time for recuperation and enjoyment was 
more than usually limited. It gave him a delight 
in Nature, in the simple pleasures of life, and in 
bodily exercise that kept the balance of his mind 
true when circumstances impelled him toward 
one-sided activit57". He never forgot the fun of 
being a boy — never, in fact, quite got over being 
a boy. 

He watched in a respectful, interested way 
the drama of native life going on about him. 

"The high chiefs — John Young, Kanaina, Paki, 
Governor Kekuanaua and others, with their fat wives — 
were majestic creatures, towering above the common 
people and foreigners, but 'the mighty have fallen,' 
and when Queen Emma and Mrs. Bishop died the line 
became extinct. I remember the royal soirees at the 
palace, when the gorgeous uniforms and noble bearing 
of these chiefs threw foreign diplomats and naval 
ofHcers into the shade. We mission children would 
join the throng that rallied around there (the old 
palace) when the chiefs stalked majestically around 
in their regimentals — grander men than they make 
in these days — and soldiers stood around in imposing 
array holding old flint-lock muskets as harmless as 
pop-guns, while the band played; royal fat females 
paddled from room to room, the embodiment of serene 
dignity. How we boys did not dare go inside, but 
looked in at the awful ceremony of presentation and 
wondered why people didn't sometimes fall down dead 
in awe of the royal presence ! But the supreme moment 



26 Samuel Chapman Armstrongf 

was to come. The banquet hall opened and in marched 
kings and queens and nobles and dignitaries; the 
famished boys did not dare intrude, but their turn 
came by and by. Father got on capitally with this 
native aristocracy; they always expected a good time 
when he appeared, and in spite of his occasional severity 
they truly loved him." 

Most of his acquaintance with the rank and file 
of the natives was gained on riding trips taken 
alone or with his father among them, when, in the 
absence of hotels or hired lodgings, he slept night 
after night in the native huts. 

"The natives were all kindness to friends and to 
those who trusted them," he writes. "Father used 
to tell us of a walk of twenty miles which he took 
through a waterless district, when, distressed and faint 
with thirst, he came upon a watermelon in the road. 
After some hesitation he ate it, and at his journey's 
end met a native who asked if he had found it and told 
him he left it there for him. He always gave his purse 
to his guide and never lost anything. 

"Often have we boys halted our horses before their 
thatched houses and been greeted with, 'Where are 
you from?' After the reply, the universal formula 
was, without regard to time or distance, ' Mama oukou ! ' 
(You have come swiftly.) Next the question, 'Are 
you hungry?' to which there was but one answer, 
'Very hungry.' Then a stampede of the household 
and neighborhood in pursuit of some fish, pigs, poultry 
and vegetables, cooked underground on hot stones, 
but the food was always eaten cold. After dismounting, 
we would lie on our backs on the mats and father's 



Hawaiian Life. J839-J860 27 

old retainers would ' lomi-lomi ' the fatigue all out of 
us, for these people have, it is claimed, the most perfect 
massage or movement-cure known. It is part of their 
hospitality, and it is delicious." 

This close familiarity with the natives at their 
homes and in their daily lives gave him an oppor- 
tunity to learn the characteristics of a childish race, 
weak, yet capable of development under wise 
leadership. 

To know a race intimately and accurately does 
not imply a desire to help it. The young Southerner 
is reared in close association with the Negro; the 
plainsman knows the Indian; but Armstrong ab- 
sorbed from the atmosphere about him an attitude 
of protection and helpfulness toward the weaker 
race. The conversation of his elders and the daily 
work and effort of those whom he most respected 
taught him that it is not enough to alone under- 
stand, but that to understand in order to pity and 
to serve is the proper attitude of a Christian. The 
missionary fathers, like the slaveholders, practically 
regarded the Hawaiians as of a type inferior to 
themselves so far as mental and moral fiber was 
concerned ; but no missionary ever lost the point of 
view that the soul of each of these people was equal 
in the sight of the Almighty to his own, and though 
individuals may often have failed in discretion and 
wisdom, the missionaries as a whole never forgot 
the thought, the mainspring of their work, that to 
build up and strengthen a human soul is the most 



28 Samuel Chapman Afmstfong 

important work that a man can do. To his 
early absorption of this idea may imdoubtedly be 
ascribed Armstrong's later unquestioning dedica- 
tion of his powers to philanthropic work. 

Samuel Armstrong received his early education 
at the " Royal School" at Punahou, foimded in 1840 
for the training of the young chiefs. Some of these 
dark-skinned youth, among them Kalakaua and his 
sister Liliuokalani, or " Lydia" as she was familiarly 
called, who later became king and queen, were his 
playmates; but the Hawaiians, scant offspring of a 
declining race, were soon outnumbered by the sturdy 
mission children who were admitted to the school, 
and in time the Hawaiians disappeared from it 
altogether. 

The "Royal School" was presided over by the 
brothers Edward and George Beckwith, who suc- 
ceeded in inspiring their scholars with a real interest 
in study. Armstrong wrote of it in later years : 

"I have never since seen or heard of such a school as 
this became. Every boy and girl seemed inspired to 
learn, and we played as hard as we studied. Our 
teachers led us up the hill of science. There was a 
moral atmosphere, a Christian influence in the school 
which permanently affected the lives of most of the 
pupils. I regard it as the ideal school of all I have 
ever known for the perfect balance of its mental and 
moral inspiration. Under Mr. George Beckwith, a 
pupil of Doctor Samuel Taylor, of Andover, and a 



Hawaiian Life, J839-J860 29 

remarkably fine classical scholar, we plunged into the 
mysteries of Latin and Greek." 

Some manual labor was required of all the pupils. 

"More distinct is my recollection of our manual- 
labor drill — I did not then have it on the brain. How, 
reqtiired to hoe our patches in severalty of melons or 
com or summer squash till we could count seven 
stars, we studied the heavens as I have never since 
done, not daring to shirk, for Mr. Rice, the farmer, was 
an embodiment of firm, kindly discipline that I have 
never forgotten. He hit us hard sometimes, when 
delinquent, but was always fair. How I hated work 
then, impatiently digging up the melon seeds to see if 
they had started!" 

That he took a genuine pleasure in school work 
is shown by the following extracts from the vacation 
journals. A boy who names his sail-boat and his 
horse after the heroes of his text-books, and studies 
his Latin grammar before breakfast in vacation, has 
no half-hearted interest in his studies. 

"HiLo, Hawaii. 
' ' November 27, 1857. Friday. This a . m . I finished my 
re\dew of the Greek grammar to Section 133; burrowed 
round among Doctor Coan's books to find some classical 
authors. It was very rainy all day and favorable to 
study. Delved into Telemaque as yesterday and read 
two books. . . . Made a topmast and squaresail 
spar for the Telemachtis preparatory to to-morrow's 
sailing. The evening closed early, and I read aloud in 
'Peter Parley's Recollections of a Lifetime' most of 



30 Samuel Chapman Atmstrongf 

the evening. Read C * to sleep from 'Blair's 

Rhetoric' 

"Saturday, November 2Sth. Commenced this morn- 
ing a review of the syntax in Andrews and Stoddard's 
Latin grammar; completed three pages and intended 

*A delicate sister. 

Note. — While he was studying at Oahu College events 
occurred which perhaps furnished the first practical test of 
his powers. He was called on to take charge of a geometry 
class whose regtdar teacher, one of the principals, had been 
obliged to give it up for a time. This incident is described by 
one of the pupils thus: "It required no little tact for an under- 
graduate to take charge of a class under such circumstances. 
But Armstrong seemed equal to any emergency. On the play- 
ground he was the leading spirit in all athletic exercises, and 
was the undisputed champion in the game of wicket, in which 
his side seemed always victorious. 

" On taking the class in geometry, from the very first 
he began to inspire us with some of his own enthusiasm. 
Coming in from a hotly contested game of wicket, he 
looked every inch a man. He would deliberately close 
his own book and lay it one side, seldom referring to it 
during the hour of recitation. It was thus easy for him 
to persuade us to follow his example in this particular. Our 
memories were trained to do admirable service, so that at the 
end of the year the majority, if not all, of the class could repeat 
the entire seven books, except the demonstration and mathe- 
matical calculations, from, beginning to end, or give any axiom, 
any definition or proposition by its appropriate book and 
number. 

" In the demonstrations on the blackboard a very different 
course was pursued. The figures were often purposely 
changed from the form given in the book. Numerals were 
usually substituted for the letters, and every efifort was made 
to make the demonstration as much as possible a training of 
the reason with as little of memorising as could be. We were 
stimulated to study up other demonstrations, and sometimes 
he would set the example by giving us the result of his own 
study of other text-books. In this way we were trained to self- 



Hawaiian Life* J839-J860 31 

to make a furious onset at the same thing after 
breakfast, 

"After breakfast we talked or gossiped. They, 

H and D , called, and soon after that we 

had a splendid bath in the Wailuku, which is now. 

reliant habits of study, which I have found the greatest service 
in all my subsequent mathematical work. 

"It was remarkable how much hard work he got out of his 
class. But in this, as in everything else, he always led others 
by his example. I have been under the instruction of various 
teachers in the higher mathematics; some of them were finer 
scholars than Armstrong, but I have yet to know the man who 
could inspire an entire class with his own spirit and purpose as 
he did. There was something in his personality far more 
influential than mere learning or scholarship, and I can never 
cease to look back to the work done under him as among the 
most valuable to me of my whole life. 

"With the end of the school year came the public examination. 
The books were, as usual, laid aside, and with a method and 
precision almost military the class was put through its drill. 
Every one was delighted with the bearing of the teacher and 
the readiness of the class. At length, by way of variety, 
Edward Wilcox was told to demonstrate a certain theorem in 
Book First. After drawing the figures, he was requested to 
change the order of the numerals to be used in the demonstra- 
tion. Then, after a few moments given him to fix the figures thus 
renumbered in his memory, he was ordered to turn his back 
on the board and proceed with the demonstration from the 
figures thus pictured in his mind. This was done in such a 
ready and prompt manner as to excite the surprise of one of 
the examining committee, who, not appreciating the true object 
of this unusual display of intellectual gymnastics, interrupted 
him with the repeated request, 'Look at your figures, young 
man.' Armstrong then explained to the rather puzzled 
examiner the nature of the test to which he was putting his 
pupil, who was now permitted to finish his task, to the great 
interest of all present. The superior work done by the teacher 
and his class was highly appreciated by the committee, and will 
never be forgotten by those who had the good fortune to belong 
to the class." — ^Joseph S. Emerson, in The Outlook, Oct. 21, 1893. 



32 Samwel Chapman Atmsttong 

high. Only D and I ventured to cross the main 

current. H 's wife didn't want him to try it. 

"June nth. We finished up our Virgil yesterday 
and have now on hand the Anabasis and Cicero. We 
commenced the Manilian Law yesterday — it's rather 
tough. After Itmch I saddled my little mare and 
went to Hamakua-poko to find my horse Draco. I 
scoured the country and saw about every horse in 
Hamakua, but after riding some twelve or thirteen 
miles came back without him, but fotmd the cow down 
near Maliko with no rope on ; the scamps had stolen it. 
Reaching home, I fotmd that the horse had been on 
hand all the time and was with the others." 

He remained at the Punahou School till the year 
i860, first as a small boy rebellious against hoeing 
his patch of com, then as a youth with increasing 
social interests and increasing ambitions, and finally 
as a collegian; for in 1855 the school was renamed 
Oahu College, and became an institution for higher 
learning. Here as one of a class of four he took 
the first two years of a college course, which pre- 
pared him to later enter the Jiinior class at Williams 
College in i860. 

The following extracts from the vacation journal 
show that he was not permitted to fall into a way 
of life where his head did all the work: 

"Saturday, January 9, 1857. After breakfast, father 
decided to build a house for Akio (the Chinese man- 
servant), and I went to work to collect materials. Got 
3x4 scantling from Castle's for plates ; procured the 
rest, tie-beams, rafters, floor-joists, clapboards, shingles. 



Hawaiian Life. J 839- J 860 33 

etc., at Lewer's. Scantling now cost 3^ cents per foot, 
shingles $8 per thousand, clapboards (spruce), 6 feet, 
$9 per hundred, which is very reasonable. After draw- 
ing the lumber with Boki (the horse) and Akio, I took 

to H a copy of the 'Anonymous' which I had 

borrowed. We had singing-school in the evening. 

"Monday, January 11. This morning I got up 
early and tinkered away at a new gate for the upper 
lot. I finished it by ten o'clock. 

"Tuesday, January 12th. This morning I rose 
early and bathed. After breakfast I overhauled the 
wire fence lot, straightened the wires and braced the 
posts. This dirty job took me till 2:30 p.m., when I 
went home and devoured something, and then collected 
my thoughts as I could and considered my address." 

The question of pocket money still occupied the 
missionary children, and many were the ways they 
adopted of earning it. 

"One of the ways of earning pocket money as we got 
older was to get an appointment as assessor of taxes 
in some country district during the summer vacation. 
Six weeks of hard work would bring in fifty dollars. It 
was not play, especially when it came to counting the 
dogs, which, being a luxury and a nuisance, were taxed 
at a dollar a head. The burning question of Hawaiian 
politics was the dog tax; any man who would pledge 
himself to diminish it was sure of his election to the 
Hawaiian legislature. Torrents of eloquence were 
poured out on this subject, and one country member, 
Ukeke, nearly gained immortality by a bill to abolish 
the tax on good dogs and tax only bad ones, but the 
revenue tax was necessary to support royalty and the 
state, and there was no escape. It goes without saying 



34 Samuel Chapman Ai-msttong: 

that every subterfuge was resorted to by the owners, 
and I remember that my favorite method of detection 
was, with my escort, to gallop furiously up to the house 
and halt suddenly, making such a racket that the curs 
would bark and betray themselves in their hiding- 
places, inside calabashes, under the dresses of their 
squatting mistresses, and tied to distant trees. Then 
began pleading: 'Don't coimt that dog; we are going 
to eat him to-morrow ! ' ' That one is too little,' etc. It 
was tiresome work, but often very fimny. Many of my 
contemporaries at the islands assisted in some such way 
in paying the expenses of their education, and it did none 
of us any harm. [Some] worked as surveyors, striking 
their lines through tropical jungles; others took posi- 
tions as governors of guano islands 1,500 miles away 
in the remote Pacific seas, and with groups of natives 
under them loaded the clipper ships that ran down 
from San Francisco for freight.". 

To supplement his summer earnings he undertook 
in his twenty-first year the work of chief clerk to 
his father during the absence* of the latter in the 
United States, in the year 1859-60. 

" I was then," he says, " a sophomore at Oahu College, 
but the liberal salary and the prospect of independence 
tempted me, and for some months I worked hard, 
editing, book-keeping, superintending schools, etc., 
keeping up my studies by night and morning work and 
my strength by long gallops to and from the beautiful 
Manoa Valley." 

It was perhaps for financial reasons also that he 
undertook the editing of the Hae Hawaii, a 
newspaper, written in the Hawaiian tongue, which 



Hawaiian Life, J839-J860 35 

was read freely by the natives. "Often a group 
of natives could be seen," writes his brother, "in 
the heart of the wood, listening while one read 
aloud Sam's words of editorial wisdom." By 
means of this editorial work the young man gained 
some influence among the Hawaiians, and added 
to his store of experiences an acquaintance with 
wily white politicians. 

"Sam is acquiring quite a reputation as an editor," 
wrote his father to the eldest daughter, away in Cali- 
fornia, "and even numbers His Majesty among his 
editorial corps. There have come in about 600 new 
subscribers since Sam took charge of the paper. The 
Queen spoke yesterday of the Hae as a very interesting 
paper; but having his college studies to attend to, Sam 
is rather overworked." 

The years 1859 and i860 passed in this busy 
fashion without radical change till September, 
i860, when an event occurred which suddenly 
formulated his plans and stirred him into manhood. 

"On a quiet Sunday morning , . . , " he writes, 
" I rode home from service to find a gathering of natives 
at the gate and my sister weeping at the door. Before 
she spoke I knew that father was dead." 

A fortnight before, Richard Armstrong had been 
thrown from his horse and seriously injured, but 
heretofore his recovery had seemed probable. 

It had been the father's dearest wish that his son 



36 Samuel Chapman Atmstfong 

should go to Wilhams College in order that he might 
ioe under the influence of Doctor Mark Hopkins, 
its president, then regarded as the leading teacher 
of philosophy and morals in America. Samuel 
determined, therefore, to leave the islands at once, in 
order to enter, if possible, the Jimior class of Williams 
College in tim.e for the winter term ; and toward the 
end of September he set sail for the United States, 
leaving his sorrowing family behind him — foiur 
sisters, mother and brother, in the old Stone House. 

The voyage to America was accomplished with- 
out accident, though the ship encoimtered a terrible 
gale which blew it with perilous speed toward the 
coast. The gale was succeeded by a calm which 
detained the voyagers several days within sight 
of land. During this time, as Armstrong dis- 
creetly observes, "everybody but I did nothing but 
swear and smoke; I sighed for poi and my native 
land." 

In. later years, looking back over his youth, his 
mind passed over the pleasant social aspect of it — 
the jolly rides with his companions and the merry- 
makings — and turned to the inspiring beauty of 
Hawaiian scenery. He wrote in 1886 from a sick- 
bed to a group of young people then in Hawaii : 

"The beauty and grandeur of Hawaiian scenery is a 
noble teacher. ... It will make you better men 
and women if you will let it. Get all of it you can. 
Your special gaieties, parties and things are of no 
account whatever compared with the ministry of 



Hawaiian Life. J 839- J 860 37 

mountain and sea. Listen to them. Approach and 
live with them all you can. Hear and heed these great 
silent teachers about you." 

And again: 

"You have the volcano to make you devout." 

But now, naturally enough, it was of his friends, 
of the home behind him, and of his plans for the 
future that he thought. From this voyage dates 
the beginning of a series of letters to his mother 
and sisters which describe minutely his voyage, 
his college life, and his experiences in the army, 
written at first in the flowery style then fashionable, 
later with increasing brevity and force. In the 
first letters one can see the young man, half home- 
sick, half glad to escape from the tears and mourn- 
ing of Stone House, hardly conscious of his inexpe- 
rience and certainly imabashed by it, intending 
heartily to return. To what he was going he knew 
not. His parents had both desired that he should 
be a minister, and in the absence of any other plan 
he held their wishes first ; but there was in his heart 
a rollicking delight in life that did not draw him 
toward a theological seminary. 

Caroline, the eldest sister of the Armstrong chil- 
dren, had married some time before this and was 
living at Sacramento, California. Toward her home 
he made his way. He describes his arrival in 
Sacramento as follows: 

"As I walked up to the Railroad House in that new 



38 Samuel Chapman Armstrong- 

city (new to me), I could almost have sung 'Home 
Again.' There I was taken charge of by a little squirm- 
ing fellow that always went on a smart dog-trot, and 
held a dozen lamps in one hand, two carpet-bags and 
several keys in the other, and opened doors without 
laying anything down; that chap stowed me away in 
a little cell, where I felt like a dog shut up for chasing 
hens. In the morning I found my Sacramento home." 

After a merry week with his sister he took ship for 
Panama and crossed the isthmus, where another 
vessel botmd for New York awaited him. He 
wrote his mother, describing the short journey by- 
rail as follows: 

"At 4 P.M. we started over in the cars. The scenery 
was quite Hawaiian-like, and the Itixuriant foliage was 
good for the eyes. Soon we stopped for another train, 
about an hour, and I managed to procure a lot of excel- 
lent sugar-cane, which was a delightful luxury to the 
girls and myself. It was now night, and the train 
thundered along, rousing the dogs in the httle dirty 
hamlets we passed through, and the dark, oily-skinned 
savages would come with lights to their doors to see 
us and give us a salutatory yell as we passed along, 
while naked little imps would throw sticks at the cars. 
The thickets were enshrouded in darkaess, and we 
could see the quiet Chagres River close by us through 
the openings in the chaparral. Anon we would dive 
into a gloomy gorge, and the scene on the whole was 
romantic, especially as the fire-flies were flashing from 
every dark bush and gleaming in every shade. I often 
think how little those at home fancied where I was 
during those moments. I like the strangeness and 
wildness of things. 



Hawaiian Life. J539-J860 39 

"At about eight o'clock we stepped into a restaurant 
at Aspinwall to wait for the steamer to get up steam, 
and I strolled about, beset with entreaties to buy and 
eat or to purchase shell baskets; but I was inexorable. 
Soon we were on the Ariel and away on a smooth sea." 

In two weeks he arrived at New York, a month 
after his departure from Hawaii. An elder brother, 
William N. Armstrong, had been settled in New 
York as a lawyer for several years, and to him the 
newcomer went at once. The two lived together 
for some days, and under the guidance of the elder 
the yotmger saw the sights of the town. 

"It's Friday evening, November 30th, and I'm now 
in Will's room in 28 Union Square, away uptoimi and 
away up in the fourth story [sic !], and it's eleven o'clock. 
You may want to ask, as many do, 'How does New 
York seem?' It seems sure enough a great city. I 
am not disappointed either way. It gratified my 
curiosity to see the marble palaces and majestic buildings, 
but excites no feeling, no emotion. Nothing looks as 
if it had been very hard to construct. I only think how 
much these houses cost. Things are generally exag- 
gerated; the crowds on the sidewalks are not so great, 
after all — one can cross the street a hundred times an 
hour without danger, even in Broadway. I make 
nothing of doing it; it only requires self-possession and 
quickness. 

" In these crowds a fellow feels as he does in a wilder- 
ness, except that in the latter there is a certain solemnity 
and sacredness. In both one feels that no one is 
noticing him and he can do just as he likes. I'll tell 
you what did astonish me — it was Beecher's Thanks- 



40 Samuel Chapman Axmstfong; 

giving sermon — a splendid effort. His eloquence was 
matchless, his control over the audience wonderful. 
Beecher is equal to his fame. 

"I also listened for half an hour or so to the opera 
of 'The Jewess' at the Academy of Music, and it was 
my first sight. I was and am a convert to the opera; 
such sylph-like grace in acting, such queenly beauty, 
rich, melodious voices, gorgeous robes, magnificent 
scenery; such a majestic bass as that of Carl Formes, 
and the delicious trilling and swells of Madame Anna 
Bishop were enough to inspire me with a flow of delightful 
sensations such as I never before have known. The 
music gave dignity and power to the language they 
uttered, and the story involved lent a charm to the 
music. The opera was grand ! Quite different from 
the chorus of ten thousand wild he-goats that usher in 
the morning and raise their clarion-like matins on the 
crags of Waimanalo. Could you have stood by out 
side that evening as the full chorus burst out, or heard 
the voices of the Jewish maidens, you'd have felt 
healthier for a week. 

"Well, it's past twelve; to-morrow I go to Barrington 
and Williamstown ; the rest of our party are all at 
Barrington now." 



SAMUEL CHAPMAN ARMSTRONG AT THE AGE Oi 20 



CHAPTER II 

Williams College, i 860-1862 

"It was, I think, in the winter of i860, when I was 
rooming in East College at Williams, that into my 
introspective life Nature flung a sort of cataclysm of 
health named Sam Armstrong," wrote a friend and 
classmate many years after, "like other cyclones from 
the South Seas ; a Sandwich Islander, son of a missionary. 
Until Miss Murfree wrote her 'Prophet of the Great 
Smoky Mountains, ' it would have been impossible to 
describe Armstrong's immediate personal effect. There 
was a quality in it that defied the ordinary English vo- 
cabulary. To use the eastern Tennessee dialect, which 
alone could do him justice, he was 'plumb survigrous.' 
To begin with, as Mark Twain might express it, he 
had been fortimate in the selection of his parents. 
The roots of his nature struck deep into the soil of 
two strong races. . . . Then, too, he was an islander; 
his constitution smacked of the seas. There was about 
him something of the high courage and jollity of the 
tar; he carried with him the vitalities of the ocean. 
Like all those South Sea Islanders, he had been brought 
up to the water ; it had imparted to him a kind of mental 
as well as physical amphibiousness. It seemed natural 
for him to strike out in any element. But what im- 
pressed one most was his schooling. Not but that 
it was in unison with the man; it was, in fact, remark- 
ably so; but it was so entirely out of the common — 
so free-handed and virile. His father had been minister 

41 



42 Samuel Chapman Ai-mstirongf 

of public instruction at Hawaii. The son accompanied 
him on his official tours and had been let into the 
business. He could manage a boat in a storm, teach 
school, edit a newspaper, assist in carrying on a govern- 
ment, take up a mechanical industry at will, under- 
stand the natives, sympathize with missionaries, talk 
with profound theorists, recite well in Greek or mathe- 
matics, conduct an advanced class in geometry, and 
make no end of fun for little children. In short, he 
was a striking illustration of the Robinson Crusoe-hke 
multiformity of function that grows up perforce under 
the necessities of a missionary station. New England 
energy, oceanic breeziness, missionary environment, 
disclosed themselves in him. Such was Armstrong 
as he came into my life, bringing his ozone with him. 

"Armstrong gravitated to Williams College by 
social law; it was the resort for missionaries' sons; 
there was the haystack at which the missionary enter- 
prise was started; it was a kind of sacred idol, a rendez- 
vous for spiritual knights-errant, and Armstrong, 
though not very spiritual, was a knight-errant to the 
core. Like other missionaries' sons, he poked fun at 
the natives and entertained small circles with the 
ridiculous phases of missionary life; yet he was a kind 
of missionary in disguise, always ready to go out of 
his way for the purpose of slyly helping somebody up 
to a better moral or physical plane. His 'plumb 
survigrousness ' gave him an eternal effervescence; in 
fact, his body was a kind of catapult for his mind; it 
was forever projecting his mental force in some direction 
so that he was continually carrying on intellectual 
'high jinks' — going off into extravaganzas, throwing 
every subject into grotesque light; as a result, he was 
never serious, though always earnest. He took to 
Williams College as to a natural habitat; he lifted up 



"Williams College. J 860- 1862 43 

his 'plumb survigrous' voice and made intellectual 
pandemonium at the dinner table. 

"He was a trifle above middle height, broad- 
shouldered, with large, well -poised head, forehead high 
and wide, deep-set flashing eyes, a long mane of light- 
brown hair, his face very brown and sailor-like. He 
bore his head high and carried about an air of insolent 
good health. He was unconventional in his notions, 
Shaksperean in sympathy, and wished to see all sides of 
life, yet he never formed affiliations with the bad side. 
If he touched pitch, he got rid of it as soon as he could 
— pleasantly if possible, but at all events decidedly; he 
had a robust habit of will, and laid hold always of the 
best in his environment. 

"Intellectually he was a leader. Spiritually he was 
religious, with a deep reverence for his father's life 
and work. . . . Yet all felt him to be under great 
terrestrial headway. Sometimes he seemed to have 
little respect for the spiritual ; he shocked people by his 
levity and irreverance. Yet there was about him at all 
times a profound reverence of spirit for God, manhood, 
womanhood, and all sacred realities. Indeed, with him 
reverence and religion alike were matters not of form, 
but of inward principle whose application he had not 
yet mastered. OtJier_jm^n^ were_^riginal-jJiJhQug^ 
he was originaLincharacter ; but above all there was an 
"immediacy of nature. His~~greateit~Ieridency seerfied 
to be to go ahead; he has, in fact, often reminded me of 
Harry Wadsworth, the hero of E. E. Hale's 'Ten 
Times One is Ten.' He was the most strenuous man 
I ever saw. Naturally he was a problem to us — what 
would he come to? Doctor Arnold said of himself: 
'Aut Caesar, aut nullus.' Armstrong said of himself: 
'Missionary or pirate.' " * 

*Dr. John Denison in Atlantic Monthly, February, 1894. 



44 Samuel Chapman Afmstfong 

The college world in which Armstrong found 
himself during the eighteen months of his stay in 
Williamstown was a different one from that of 
to-day. The years of conflict from 1861 to 1865 
brought about a more radical divergence of student 
ideals and customs than the twenty between 1870 
and 1890, for the war, breaking the barriers 
between East and West and North and South, 
introducing the resources of the coimtry to the 
men who were able to handle them, enlarged the 
scope of college as of national life. This ante- 
bellum college world was a very little one, in which 
a kind of family life was possible ; in it men met 
their social equals and few besides; the distinctions 
between rich and poor were not emphasized as 
now by luxurious apartments for the well-to-do 
and the plainest of dormitories or boarding-houses 
for the men who have to work their way. Less 
cosmopolitan, surely, the old way, but more 
companionable . 

In such a setting individual characters stood 
clearly defined and single voices could be heard. 
More regard was given to the teacher than to the 
laboratory. Garfield's definition of a good college 
as "a log with Doctor Hopkins sitting on one end 
and a student on the other," was the standard of 
academic worth. So Armstrong was sent, not so 
much to Williams College, as to be under Doctor 
Hopkins, for Doctor Hopkins was the college. 

Armstrong saw nothing of him, however, during 



Williams College. J860-J862 45 

the first three months of his stay at Williamstown. 
His impressions at first were mainly of cold weather 
and social stiffness. When he first arrived the 
long winter vacation had begun, and in addition 
to the dreariness of ice and snow everywhere, the 
place seemed to him solemn and deserted. He chose 
a temporary lodging-place and settled himself to 
study and make what he could otherwise out of 
this place, more suited, he thought, to a New England 
anchorite than to a hot-blooded young fellow from 
the tropics. No sv/imming, no riding, no sailing, 
no flirting even; yet a man cannot study all the 
time ! No wonder the scenery moved him to 
ridicule and the society to homesickness. 

In a home letter written December 14, i860, 
he says : 

"Williamstown is shockingly lonely. It Is, you 
know, the early part of the long winter vacation now. 
I suspect that they keep the girls tied up or that they 
stay abed all the while, it's so cold; I have seen but 
a few girls and only three or four squads of urchins 
sliding down hill. The girls sometimes slide, and they 
look really pretty as they kneel on the sled, catch the 
boys' shoulders and 'scoot' away like fairies. 

"The mountains here are nothing more than Nature's 
warts, little stuck-up hills that you could cross in an 
hour on a donkey going backward faster than forward. 

"Well, I'm in a very nice room, at a desk with a 
kerosene lamp, and a stove fire just behind me, about 
ten o'clock p.m. 

"I showed my old lady yours and Ellen's drawings; 



4^ Samwel Chapman Armstfong 

she thought that 'people can get educated there as 
well as here.' The floor is carpeted and the room is 
papered. 

"The snow lies a foot deep — weather awfully cold; 
two below zero to-day. I'll tell you why to-day has 
been a very peculiar and strange one to me. First, I 
finished my Greek studies. I've read steadily some 
seven or nin^ hours every day for ten days (Sundays 
excepted) in Demosthenes — enough to have used me 
clean up at the islands, but I don't mind it at all here. 
I feel free, as the hardest is over. You see, the term 
was out a little after I arrived in New York, and I 
have to do in four or five weeks all the work of the 
last term and considerable of the previous in Sopho- 
more year. The work is over and I breathe freely. 

"Secondly, I had a letter from J [a sister]; she is 

doing well; letters, you know, are precious to the exile. 

"Thirdly, I had my first sleigh ride! I hired a 
sleigh and invited a student to go with me; but I had 
to rub my ears to keep them from freezing — more 
work than fim. 

"Fourthly, as I was reading the peroration of Demos- 
thenes' Oration on the Crown, little George C 

brought me a letter in Will's handwriting. I opened 
it and was surprised to see the delicate handwriting 
inside. I wondered again, and just then saw 'Stone 
House, ' and soon I knew it was from you, and with 
an intensity of interest that you haven't the remotest 
idea of I devoured its contents." 

At last the loth of January came and the term 
began. He moved from his room in the lodging- 
house to the college dormitory, whence he writes 
as follows: 



"Williams College. i&60-iS62 47 

" WiLLiAMSTOWN, January 10, 1861. 

"I have left Mrs. C 's and room now in 13 East 

College. We are on the ground floor, and here is a plan 
of the room. The floor is carpeted plainly and the 
walls are papered; just behind the sociable hangs the 
'Court of Death,' and other pictures hang around the 
room — one a most exquisite gem, 'Christ of the Cross'; 
it is small but rare. I'll get one and send it home if I 
can. We have cozy little bedrooms, about two-thirds 
as large as our spare room at home. My bedroom is 
nicely carpeted. I have a fine iron bedstead and good 
bedding. The large room was furnished when I came, 
so that I only had to fit up my bedroom, which I did 
at a cost of some $15, including a desk and a chair. 
Bedding is very expensive, and quantities are necessary 
in this weather. At six a. m. a bell rings; in about 
thirty minutes a fellow comes in and lights our fire 
(we sleep in a cold room all night) , and when the second 
bell, at seven, rings I jump up, sponge all over with 
biting cold water — this makes me feel fine — dress and 
hurry off to breakfast at Hosford's, about half a mile 
distant, where I get board at $2 per week. 

"At nine we attend prayers in the chapel. . . . 
After that Sam Alexander and I go to the gymnasium 
and have a 'set-to' with the boxing-gloves for exercise, 
and then I go to my room and study mechanics, which 
is a little tough, especially Jackson's Mechanics. At 
eleven we attend recitation in mechanics to Professor 
Albert Hopkins twenty or thirty minutes; then return 
to our rooms till twelve and then go to dinner; return 
at one p. m., always stopping at the post-oflice on the 
way, as we do also when we go to breakfast, and are too 
often disappointed. We then study our Latin, Tacitus, 
and recite to Professor Smith. After that we have 
evening prayers, always conducted by the president, 



48 Samuel Chapman Atmstrong 

and from prayers march to supper. The evening is 
then before us, for study or otherwise. On Wednesday 
and Saturday p. m. there are no recitations. 

"Our class numbers some fifty-two fellows and is a 
mixture of very fine and very poor students. Those 
with the best memories succeed the best generally, 
though not always; study and not thought seems to be 
the aim of college exercises. I'm now beginning to 
feel a little at home in Williamstown, but don't entirely 
like this cold weather. For a few days it was bitterly 
cold and I suffered a little, but it has now moderated 
and for a few days the climate has been most exhilarat- 
ing. I never felt better in my life than I do now. The 
snow is very deep, deeper than for many years before, 
and when a thaw comes there will be awful slush. 

"So now you know what I am about. I'd write you 
a longer letter if there was anything to write about; 
and, moreover, I haven't the time to write that I had 
in vacation." 

In the following speaks the philosopher: 

"Don't let your health suffer. Ellen writes me that 
you look 'careworn,' and I know you must be lonely; 
but there are 'living waters' to refresh us and sweet 
voices from a better land. ... I hope the girls 
get a chance to ride horseback occasionally. I should 
be sorry to learn that you don't get your accustomed 
rides or that Major is either ill-behaved or lean. There 
is only one thing that will keep you up at home and 
that is cheerfulness; you must secure that at all events; 
if necessary, fill the house with cats from top to bottom, 
tie a dog to every lilac, and place monkeys in every 
tree; at any rate, keep cheerful. There is no use in 
melancholy, and there is a fascination in melancholy 



"Williams College. J860-J862 49 

which is dangerous — it is Hke the serpent's insidious 
charm ; it wears the Hfe away. 

"I found it quite hard to study at first; the past 
would flash vividly over me and I could not apply my 
mind. I'm doing well now, however. I found a pleasure 
in reviewing those sad days of gloom, and found, too, 
that much of my retrospection did me no good — it was 
like a stimulant." 

During the winter he had formed a pleasant 
acquaintance with a son * of the President and in 
March was invited to share his room in Doctor 
Hopkins's house. He gladly accepted this invi- 
tation, having conceived a strong admiration for his 
president. 

"Doctor Hopkins," he said, "is a noble man in the 

highest sense of the word; I never saw his equal; he is 

essentially a man of power, and combines the highest 

traits of character." 

> 

So began a lifelong friendship with both the 
father and son. 

His new situation in a home-life relieved the 
sense of loneliness which Armstrong had felt ever 
since coming to college and greatly broadened his 
social horizon; it was of no slight importance to 
him to see something of the ways of the cultivated 
New England people he met in the families of the 
President and the college professors. He began 
to broaden his student acquaintance, and made the 

*Archibald Hopkins. 



so Samoel Chapman Afmstrongf 

discovery that good clothes and presentable man- 
ners are valuable assets. 

"When a man's history is not known, dress has a great 
deal to do with his position ; when he is once thoroughly 
known, dress is a small matter. With two-thirds of 
the fellows in college style in dress is nothing, and as 
for them I could dress anyhow, but the other third care 
much about fashion and are 3''et smart, fine and polished 
fellows — their society gives a man polish. While in 
college I wish to be dressed as well as the best. I find 
it pleasanter to be received as an equal than to be 
looked upon as out of my place when I meet with the 
well-dressed of New York or even of Williamstown." 

He joined no college society, saying: 

"In college I belong to no secret society and must 
rely on my own merit for getting friends; when one 
joins a secret society all in it are his sworn friends, 
right or wrong; this is childish." 

He keenly enjoyed this new-found social life, 
but it never made him forget the bereaved mother 
and sisters at home. He calls his pleasures to 
account for themselves in the form of some perma- 
nent good: 

"It is hardly right for me to be so singularly blest 
and so gay while you are still bleeding from the direst 
wound that you ever felt. This means something — 
God has not done all this to me for nothing. I wonder 
what He would teach bv this." 



"Williams College. J 860- J 862 51 

Meditating seriously upon the future, he writes 
at about the same time: 

"WiLLiAMSTowN, March 30, 1861, 
"Just now there is considerable religious interest 
in college, and I think I have become a better Christian 
than I used to be. I look forward with joy to a life 
of doing good, and if my native land should present the 
strongest claims to me I should be willing and glad to 
go there. My aim is to study for the ministry, but yet 
I hesitate to take the solemn vows — the responsibility 
is so awful. Besides, I may not have the means to study 
that profession or any other. If the plantation pays 
well I may be aided by that — in about a year from 
now this question will become a serious one. I believe 
the means will come from somewhere, and if they don't 
I'll begin to suspect that Providence doesn't design 
me for clerical duties. Baxter [his brother] used to say 
that none of our family would make good ministers; 
if he feels that about my choice, tell him that I mean 
to have good times after all and not to look like a 
galvanized mummy. Tell him to save me one of his 
finest colts — I may need it in about four years." 

War excitement touched him in the spring vaca- 
tion of 1 86 1. April 20th he wrote from New York: 

"It is no easy thing to compose oneself at this 
time. War is the only thing talked about, and almost 
the only thing done is getting up regiments and making 
uniforms, etc., for the soldiers. Thousands wear 
badges of one kind and another on their breast, indi- 
cating the allegiance to the flag. The infants in the 
nurses' arms hold in their tiny hands the Stars and 



52 Samael Chapman Atmstfongf 

Stripes, and small boys stick little flags all over them- 
selves; the drays and carts of all descriptions display 
the Union flag, and in every imaginable place the star- 
spangled banner is 'flung to the breeze.' The appear- 
ance of Broadway and Cortlandt Street is magnificent 
from the profusion of bunting hung out of the windows. 
"The excitement is extraordinary; since the Seventh 
Regiment left, the New Yorkers have taken and will 
take the deepest interest in the war. The departure 
of the Seventh was a magnificent triumph; never did 
the Caesars have such an ovation; handkerchiefs moist- 
ened with tears were waved at them — one great surge 
of applause rolled down Broadway and continued for 
hours. The regiment looked splendidly. Scarcely a 
lady of the higher circles of this city but has a friend 
there — some of them have many; there are lovers 
and brothers and bridegrooms in the regiment. It is 
awful to think of the amount of happiness that is staked 
upon the petted Seventh. Hundreds of the noblest 
hearts will bleed or brighten as those fellows fall or 
survive. No one doubts their courage." 

He was present at the great patriotic meeting in 
Union Square, New York, where a quarter of a 
million of persons were gathered, and v^here Major 
Anderson's speech roused the people to white heat. 

"I shall go to the war if I am needed, but not till 
then; were I an American, as I am a Hawaiian, I should 
be off in a hurry. Next term it will be hard to remain 
at Williamstown, and harder yet to study." 

But ere long lack of money took him back to 
Williamstown. He continues: 



Williams College. J860-J862 53 

" I might say here that I really got tired of New York 
City after being there nine days — one fact, however, 
is that I couldn't afford to visit the opera and theater; 
and I don't get any horseback rides — that is too bad, 
'but I must grin and bear it' ! I hope to get a swim in 
a month or two. In this miserable hole one can go into 
the stream only three months in the year ! Not before 
the 4th of July." 

The chary Berkshire spring passed and full sum- 
mer came. 

"But it is almost June and we are wearing our winter 
clothing and sit by fires. Many fellows, having burned 
up all their wood, are determined not to buy any more 
and so have to shiver through. Our stove has been 
taken down, and I have to wrap up to keep warm enough 
to study comfortably. It is the very meanest kind of 
weather — the worst spring that anybody ever knew 
here, and the farmers are almost discouraged. 

"We see the sun now and then from week to week 
and everybody runs to see it when they get a chance. 
I can't stand many of these New England winters, and 
just now long for the trade winds, clear skies, mountains, 
the ocean, and a ride on horseback. A ride here costs 
fifty cents, but the nags are a sorry-looking set and can 
only trot, and the ladies as well as gentlemen do nothing 
but trot, with a few exceptions. 

"I have begun to dig in the garden this term, and 
when it doesn't rain I get up before breakfast and spade 
up flower beds, etc. I have one large flower bed all to 
myself — but the rainstorms interfere sadly with this 
plan. I am having an easy time now, I study my 
lessons only about two and a half hours a day, and on 
Wednesday have only one recitation and on Saturday 



54 Sarawel Chapman Armstfong 

none. But I study practical astronomy besides — that is, 
I go down to the observatory when it is clear and look 
at the stars. It takes up my evenings to a great extent, 
but I don't recite to any one. After this, till I gradu- 
ate, I shall only have two recitations a day, except on 
Wednesdays and Saturdays, when there is only one." 

An occasional word gives a glimpse of the opinions 
then prevalent concerning the course of the war. 

"There is one feeling that you need not now be 
troubled with — that is, longing to come to the States. 
The Southerners are desperate now, and are bound to 
ruin northern commerce. "Within three or four months 
from to-day, I suppose, the southern privateers will 
be hovering about the California coast and the packets 
to and from the islands will be in danger; and the 
steamers on their way to Panama and up this side 
will be liable to capture or a hard fight. Still, they 
are pretty formidable and can't be easily caught. The 
war will afford but little chance for a young lady here 
to get married, and those that stay here will most 
likely become spinsters. 

"I haven't told you, I guess, that the students are 
all drilling in military maneuvers. Each class is 
formed into a company and drills once or twice a day — 
it's good fun. We sent to Governor Andrew for 
muskets, but he won't let us have any at present. 
There is nothing going on just now. Politics and war 
matters are progressing steadily, but let me assure you 
that you probably entirely misunderstand the state 
of things. The excitement is not nearly as intense 
as you imagine, and naturally so. The reason of this 
is, we keep up with events; every day we get the news, 
and so it comes in small driblets; we expect everything 



Williams College. JS60-J862 55 

before it happens and know it within a few hours after 
it has happened. You get the news in gre^t masses — 
the news of six or eight weeks in one lump, and you 
think the world is coming to an end, imagine all kinds 
of horrible things, while we are entirely cool and calm. 
Now and then a big excitement comes up and lasts a 
day or so and dies out; there will be fighting soon, I 
guess and hope, but the South cannot conquer and the 
North can. 

"I board now at Charity ville, and we walk four 
miles a day in going to and from our meals. There 
are eighteen fellows there, comprising the smartest 
fellows in the Senior class, and we have high times. 
I never sat at a merrier table. The living is plain but 
neat. I pay $2 per week. I tell you all this is good 
maoli* The summer term of Junior year here is the 
most luxurious in college; the best studies — or rather 
the most interesting — and having, as I do, such a 
splendid home and such kind friends, it almost seems 
as if I had nothing more to ask for. This is almost a 
'Happy Valley' (yet I owe the barber for cutting my 
hair and can't pay him for a while yet; the bulldogs of 
poverty have just now got me foul)." 

As the summer of 1861 approached, Armstrong 
began to feel the reaction from the winter of hard 
study and a stimulating climate, following as they 
did hard upon his taxing labors in Honolulu and 
the death of his father. He complained during 
the winter just passed of headache and fatigue, 
and, as soon as his engagements would permit, 
started with several other young Hawaiians on a 
walking trip to the Adirondacks. 

* Exceedingly. 



$6 Samuel Chapman Armstrong 

A series of letters sent home from this trip reveal 
Armstrong as the sportsman, a role he played with 
poor grace ; one can see the quizzical eye with which 
he regards the deer and the fish as they evade his 
attempts to kill. 

"I spent a week at Racket Lake, boarding with 

Madam W at the reduced fare of $2 per week 

for everything, lodging included. Time flew rather 
slowly sometimes, but there I read Harper's Magazine and 
'Sam Slick,' and went fishing, too, now and then. 
It makes me feel riled, sarcastic, cruel and almost like 
crying when I think of those pesky fish. One afternoon 
I pulled a clumsy boat, containing a consumptive 
gentleman besides myself, the distance of twelve miles 
to and from a famous fishing-hole, and I caught two 
insignificant trout — one for every six miles. Another 
time, indeed twice, I fished for lake trout under a 
scorching sun some three hours, and caught — nothing ! 
At times I felt furious; occasionally it seemed like a 
good joke, and now and then I would moralize as my 
neglected hook lay beneath the glassy waters. Did it 
indicate that suasion was not my forte? It certainly 
showed that fishing wasn't, and fishing is only an appeal 
to the highest faculties of fishes. 

"I vainly endeavored to guess the secret cause of 
my bad luck, whether it was physical or metaphysical, 
whether it was fate or fortune that so blighted my 
hopes. I especially noticed that all who were with me 
shared in my misfortunes, and I really suspect that 
had I lived in the days of the blue laws, etc., I should 
have been burned for witchcraft or fishcraft. And 
now to all fishing I say a long farewell. It's of no 
use — none whatever — I can't do it; and my only con- 



"Williams College, 1860- J 862 57 

solation is that if a treacherous tempest shall ever 
consign me to fellowship with the finny and scaly 
tribes they will probably not injure one who never did 
them any harm. Henceforth there shall be no inter- 
course between me and fishes — the world is wide enough 
for us all. 

"Twice I went 'floating' for deer; the first time I 
only heard a deer in the distance — the next time I saw 
one. I saw his flashing eyeballs afar off in the darkness. 
I took a nervous aim at the lustrous orbs, fired, and off 
he bounded, doubtless singing to himself that little 
ditty, 'A rig-a-jig-jig and away we go !' " 

The opening of his Senior year in college found 
Samuel Armstrong again in Williamstown, eager to 
enter upon the interesting course of study presented. 
Although he had an intimate personal acquaintance 
with Doctor Hopkins, he had never yet come under 
his direct instruction. Now for nine hours weekly 
he sat beneath that great teacher. Mark Hopkins 
was equally a metaphysician and a moralist; he 
never let slip opportunities to enforce on his pupils 
the homely everyday applications of the great 
truths that they were apprehending; his philosophy 
has been called the " philosophy of common sense. " 
Yet even more than a thinker and a doer he was a 
believer. 

"None of the members of the class of 1862," wrote a 
classmate of Armstrong, "could ever forget the calm 
but earnest words in which he repudiated Hamilton's 
statement that ' faith is the organ by which we apprehend 



58 Samwel Chapman Armstfong 

what is beyond our knowledge.' Faith to him was 
the trust of the soul reposed in a person."* 

In the class-room the air was electric with thought. 
Doctor Hopkins encouraged the free asking of 
questions and never hesitated to make a point by 
means of a good story. Armstrong "reveled in 
the class-room discussions," says Doctor Denison. 
"He bristled with arguments and swarmed wdth 
new ideas." The opportimities which he was 
having impressed him deeply. 

"The coming year is fraught with responsibility and 
yet pleasure — it must tell heavily on our after lives; 
such opportunities never come twice; we are treated 
like and feel like men now, and must qmt ourselves 
like men. Soon the greatest mind in New England 
will take and train us. All our study consists of reading; 
we hardly commit anything to memory. 

"I'll tell you how I study my lessons. My chum 
takes up Hamilton's Metaphysics and reads it aloud. 
I take my arm-chair or the lounge and listen to him. 
In less than an hour he is through and I am ready for 
recitations — that is all the preparation I have, and we 
only recite twice a day." 

In those days a good memory was not only 
desirable, but necessary, in order to pass the final 
college examinations. He writes, describing the 
customary test at the close of the Senior year: 

"The examination was oral and public. Doctoi 
Davis and all the professors were there, and some 

*"Life of Mark Hopkins," by Dr. Franklin Carter. 



Williams College. J860-J862 59 

others. We were called to the floor to answer questions, 
and for two days we sat eight hours per day on hard 
benches. It was severe work to endure all this and 
have the contents of the seventeen books in our heads 
at the same time." 

Besides the opportunity to study under Doctor 
Hopkins's leadership, his Senior year brought 
new social pleasures. No elective system divided 
the classes, and with the constant companionship 
grew up a passionate loyalty to class and college. 
The Senior year was a "perfect festival" and 
Williams queen among colleges. 

He joined and became president of a debating 
society, and took part in the discussions of 
another and became vice-president of a theo- 
logical society.* More and more he grew to 
enjoy the quiet beauty of Williamstown, seated 
among the hills, with her elm-bordered streets 
and air of academic retirement. After his usual 
vacation visit to New York in the spring of 
1862 he wrote: 

"I do not hesitate to say that its [New York's] tend- 
ency is demoralising — lost as one is in the great 
throng, he feels like an atom, of no particular account, 
and loses by degrees that sense of responsibility to 
God which gives tone and character to life. I like 
New York exceedingly, but am afraid to make it my 
permanent home." 

*Having for its aim the discussion of practical missionary 
■work. 



6o Samuel Chapman Atmstfong 

During this vacation and the one following he 
began to feel more keenly the excitement of war 
which was thrilling the country, and the spring of 
1862 marked both the opening of his active career 
as a soldier and the close of the peaceful episode 
of Williamstown life. 

Scarcely two years had elapsed since he had gone 
there, but already he had received many of the most 
forcible and permanent impressions of his life. 
" Whatever good teaching I have done has been Mark 
Hopkins teaching through me," he said in later 
years; and it was evident that the characteristic 
mental and moral attitude of the teacher was truly 
reflected in his pupil. Mark Hopkins had a strong 
influence in confirming the natural tendency of 
his mind toward a philosophical view of life, but 
no follower of that sturdy thinker ever allowed a 
barren philosophy to sap his interest in every-day 
affairs. His philosophy was rather of the sort 
that enabled him to bear discouragements with 
cheerfulness, to meet obstacles with unfailing 
resources, and to depend on no man's strength but 
his own in time of need. 

Armstrong was indebted to Doctor Hopkins, too, 
for the development of a deep and genuine religious 
feeling. His boyish letters are tinged with a con- 
ventionally pious tone, but from this time on the 
references to spiritual and religious matters are 
more truly utterances of original thought and feeling : 
perhaps this change was due in part to the fact 



Williams College. J 860- J 862 6i 

that about the middle of his college course he 
definitely gave up his project of entering the minis- 
try; imder the influence of Doctor Hopkins's large 
and generous attitude toward life he became an 
honester, simpler man, more modest about his 
present attainment and more ambitious for the 
future. 



CHAPTER III 
Life in the Army. 1862-1865 

Examinations were over and college honors 
assigned — to Armstrong the "Ethical Oration"; 
class-day was past, with its absorbing interests 
of dance and the supper, when "every man told 
faithfully whether he was engaged or in love," 
and the last farewells were spoken under the elms 
while the morning sun streamed down, finding 
every good fellow in "floods of tears." College 
life ended, he returned to New York to await what- 
ever destiny had in store for him. 

For weeks the military situation had been grow- 
ing more serious. McClellan had met the Confed- 
erates in two battles — Fair Oaks on May 31st and 
Gaines's Mills on Jime 30th — and the Union Army 
had suffered severe defeats. But McClellan laid 
all disaster to insufficient support from headquarters, 
and demanded from Lincoln always more and 
more troops, intimating that if he had had a larger 
force these defeats would have been victories. 
Ready to give his generals every chance for success, 
Lincoln issued a call for troops. The cotintry 
responded, "We are coming. Father Abraham, 

62 



Life in the Afmy. 1862-1865 63 

three hundred thousand strong," and recruiting 
went forward briskly. 

Armstrong still considered Hawaii as his father- 
land and did not share the burning patriotism of 
the times ; neither did he evince any special interest 
in the cause of the slave; though before long 
the constant presence of danger made him appre- 
ciate the need of the sustaining power of a moral 
principle and fostered in him both hatred of slavery 
and love of his adopted country — still the road to 
enlistment in the army was an easy one for him; 
his friends and classmates had already entered 
upon it, public opinion was urgent, and his own 
temperament inclined toward the soldier's life. 
He expected at first no more than a place in the 
ranks, but yielding to the representations of his 
friends, who assured him that few volunteer officers 
were well versed in tactics before enlisting and 
that educated men were much needed as officers, 
he decided to accept a commission. The first steps 
were soon taken. A hint from a classmate to the 
effect that he had a good chance of success in Troy, 
New York, determined him to go to that city, where 
a regiment was being raised to be commanded by 
Colonel Willard, a regular officer of high standing. 
In Troy, therefore, he built a shanty on one of the 
public squares and began, unknown as he was, to 
enlist men for a company of which he was to be 
captain. His methods were successful enough to 
enable him to complete the required quota before 



64 Samuel Chapman Atmstrong 

his competitors, and he was sworn in as senior 
captain. 

Thus the metamorphosis of collegian into soldier 
was accomplished. As he studied philosophy, so 
he studied tactics and soldiering, with the assist- 
ance of Colonel Willard, who interested himself in 
the yoimg Hawaiian and gave him much advice in 
organizing and drilling his men. It was a thoroughly 
congenial life, which he described in a letter to his 
mother. Who cannot pictxire the writer in his 
soldier's clothes filled with the zest of living? 

"Headquarters Rensselaer County Regiment, 

" August 9, 1862. 

"I am in sole charge of a regiment of men! The 
regiment is not yet completed by far, but I am officer 
of the day; the adjutant and colonel have left. It is 
nine o'clock p.m., and I am in command. I am Captain 
Armstrong; not yet commissioned, but hope to be 
when my company is filled up. I have now some fifty- 
odd men — eighty-three is the minimum. I am seated 
in the commander's tent; my chair rests on the ground; 
I write by the light of a lantern. I have on a sword and 
sash and military overcoat. The tents stretch across 
the field at a little distance and look beautiful. This 
is strange enough for me. I have secured my position 
by the fairest means. Such a life I never led before — 
how this recruiting business lets one into human nature 
— it is the best school I ever had. 

"We put up a little wooden shanty on Washington 
Square, Troy. Had a large sign painted on canvas 
and stuck up; scattered our posters around and went 
to work recruiting men. We have met the very meanest 



Life in the Army. J 862- J 865 65 

and the very best of men; some enhst for money and 
some for love of country. Sometimes men of means 
and of family come forward nobly and enter the ranks 
as privates. 

"I have the most respectable company by far. I 
have several fellows of sound principle from the Sabbath- 
fichools in this city, and intelligent, good men have 
heard of my company from some distance and come 
to join it. At this very moment (two o'clock Sunday 
morning) one of my men has been brought to camp 
from the city drunk, and is singing in the guard-house 
in the most comical manner. 

"I shall soon have to go on the 'grand rounds' with 
a sergeant and two privates — i.e., visit all the stations. 
I have just given out a new countersign. 

"The night is a charming one; the moonlight is 
exquisite, and lies sweetly and softly on the Hudson 
River, on whose bank is our camp. I now feel quite 
wide awake, from being called several times to the 
stations where riotous fellows were trying to run the 
guards. 

"We have been treated with great kindness, and I 
am perfectly satisfied with the real cordial interest 
which some of the citizens take in us and in me. There 
are some splendid men in the city — how that fellow in 
the guard-house is yelling ! I have had no time to go 
into society at all, and shall not, since as soon as the 
regiment is filled we shall probably be ordered away to 
a camp of instruction. 

"The recruiting service brings one in contact with 
human feelings — no outside is put on to the enlisting 
officer; mothers beg in tears for him to release their 
sons; fathers give their assent to their child's going, 
and with a trembling hand and dimmed eyes sign the 
boy's release. One father called it signing his son's 



66 Samuel Chapman Afmstrong 

death-warrant. Then the Irish women come around 
and make themselves comical and pathetic by turns. 
I have lost sleep and flesh in this work, but it is only 
working off superfluous stuff. I am hearty as a buck; 
this life agrees with me. I have held numerous patriotic 
meetings in the country, at places often thirteen miles 
from Troy. At these meetings good speakers are 
present and vve often succeed in getting men after the 
speeches. I seldom get back from these meetings till 
one o'clock in the morning. 

"To-night our company holds two meetings. About 
half were from the Baptist and other Sunday-schools of 
Troy. They used to call it 'the Sunday-school Company' 
— boys whom their mothers wished me to take if they 
mtist go. The rest were another class, large country 
fellows, farmers from Pittstown and Albia and workmen 
from the Troy nail factory; a motley crowd of eighty, 
always infused with fun b}^ the little city fellows, 
hardly bigger than their own knapsacks." 

On August 30th came the word that the regi- 
ment was to start for the front. The departure 
was a dramatic one, with "pretty girls in squads" 
to say farewell to the soldiers, and shouts and tears 
from the people as the train moved away. In 
New York Armstrong was met by his brother, who 
marched with him and his regiment through the 
city, and who tells an incident of the day. The 
regiment had camped in City Hall Park for a rest. 
"While I sat conversing with him there one of his 
men came up and said : ' I say, Captain, where can I 
get a drink of water ? ' He at once started off to get 
water for him. I said : ' It seems to me that it is not 



Life in the Army. J862-J865 67 

very good military discipline for the captain to be 
nrnning aroiind for water for his men.' He replied: 
* The men must have water. I'm bound to see that 
they get it.' " 

After leaving New York the regiment continued 
its inspiring progress, sailing through the North 
River, with rows of gaily dressed ladies on the 
banks waving handkerchiefs and flags, to the 
Eastern & Amboy Railroad, where they took a 
train to Philadelphia. Feted and fed gloriously 
there, they moved on to Baltimore. 

"The rest of our journey lay through Maryland. But 
first, about our transportation. The regiment was 
closely packed in twenty-six cars, forty men in a car — 
not passenger cars, but close boxes, each containing 
three long, frail benches made of rough boards. We 
rode day and night, and, being packed like sheep, there 
was no lying down, except on the floor, which was 
thickly covered with coal dust and dirt. 

"We finally reached Point of Rocks, the first place 
where we could at all realize the war; here, as at every 
other point we stopped at along the road, the men 
jumped from the cars in swarms and devoured every 
mouthful of bread or any other eatable the neighbor- 
hood could furnish and that money could procure. 
From Point of Rocks we rode to Harper's Ferry, and 
thence to Martinsburg, Virginia, which we reached 
September 2d, the most advanced point of the Federal 
lines and one which should be held only by the most 
experienced troops. Here we began camp life in 
earnest." 



68 Samuel Chapman Armstrong 

Martinsburg was a small town on the Baltimore & 
Ohio Railroad, about a day's march from Harper's 
Ferry toward the northwest. It was, as Armstrong 
says, an advanced post. The main body of the 
army had been withdrawn, after the bitter defeat 
at the second battle of Bull Rim, to the fortifica- 
tions about Washington, where a shift of com- 
manders was made, Pope being replaced by 
McClellan, though a few regiments were scattered 
here and there throughout the State for protection 
and defense. Of these the One Hundred and 
Twenty-fifth New York was one. It was a trying 
situation for green troops, with alarms on every 
hand, their ears kept constantly alive by reports of 
the startling events which were taking place only a 
few miles to the north of them. Lee and Jackson, 
after thrilling Maryland with their daring, were pene- 
trating into Pennsylvania and seemed to be threaten- 
ing her very capital. When the One Hundred and 
Twenty-fifth New York arrived at Martinsburg the 
men thought that Jackson was close at their rear, 
though in reality it was not until a week later that 
Lee detached and sent him southward. 

Thus Armstrong's entrance into military life 
was at an anxious time. 

"My position taxed my capacities to the utmost. A 
captain has as much to do as — in fact, he is practically — 
the father of ninety children. Men in camp, sensible 
men, lose all their good judgment and almost their good 
sense; they become puerile, and come to the captain on 



Life in the Atmy. J 862- 1 865 69 

a multitude of silly, childish matters. A captain does 
not only his own, but all the thinking of the company. 
Well, we drilled at Martinsburg and ate and slept, etc., 
for a few days quietly, but soon there was a consciousness 
of peril; whole companies were sent out scouting and 
on picket duty. The whole 3,000 men there were 
alive and ready. One night, when I was officer of the 
day, I tested the efficiency of our guard when they 
knew the enemy were expected, and I ran the guard 
five times and seized six men's muskets, rendering 
them helpless. But I came very near being shot by 
one guard, and would have been, but he suspected 
who I was. 

"At Martinsburg we considered ourselves as bagged; 
we were shut out from all communication with our 
friends, and Jackson was supposed to be in the rear. 
We lived among alarms. An old farmer came to water 
his horses near to where one of the pickets was standing 
— thirty hostile cavalry were reported in sight — the 
regiment was called to arms — there was mounting in 
hot haste and some cheeks grew pale. Three companies 
started off on double-quick after the old farmer and his 
horse. Having scoured the neighbourhood when it was 
morally certain from the cavalry scouts that no enemy 
was within ten miles, the companies returned — they 
took a new track and a report came that 1,000 of the 
enemy were upon us. We were ordered out again — a 
long rifle-pit was dug — some were almost wild and some 
were sick." 

As Lee moved northward he f otmd that he would be 
unable to live on the country as he had hoped, and 
began to consider how he should open a way through 
the Shenandoah Valley to his base of supplies. 



70 Samuel Chapman Armstrong 

The way was clear except for one post, Harper's 
Ferry, which was still held by Union troops, though 
by all the rules of war it should have abandoned 
because of its situation in a hostile country. 
To capture this solitary stronghold, therefore, 
Lee despatched Stonewall Jackson September loth. 
Jackson's marches were rapid, and by night he was 
close on Harper's Ferry. All the troops available 
were thrown in to defend it, and among them the 
One Himdred and Twenty-fifth New York was 
despatched from Martinsburg. Armstrong thus 
describes the hasty reenf orcement : 

"One night, when deep sleep had fallen upon us, 
when after a day of wild reports we were just beginning 
to get refreshed most sweetly, an order came which 
threw us into the wildest confusion. We were to 
retreat instanter. Tents were struck — a thousand-and- 
one articles had to be picked up. Misunderstanding 
reigned among the commanders, and confusion pre- 
vailed throughout; such a wild bustle, such a thoroughly 
disagreeable affair I hope never again to participate in. 
There was, of course, yelling all the time. Well, finally 
the knapsacks were packed, the men fell into line, and 
away we marched at two o'clock a.m., September ii, 
1862. The men were unused to walking and to carry- 
ing loads, and within four miles 300 knapsacks were 
thrown away. The retreat was a wearisome affair 
and hundreds sat down exhausted by the roadside, not 
caring what became of them. The men could not be 
kept in rank; every apple- or plum-tree on or near the 
road was plundered and every well or spring was drained 
by dense throngs of thirsty wretches. Order was 



Life in the Atmy, J862-J865 71 

turned into disorder, and the regiment, along with 
others, moved like a herd of driven cattle. Companies 
scattered and left no nucleus ; a few of us held the main 
body of our men together; and it was well, for when 
close upon Harper's Ferry information came that the 
rebels were in strong force in front, prepared to dispute 
our advance; only three companies could be brought to 
bear against them, and mine was one. That time the 
affair seemed serious, and all looked a little paler. 
Guns were loaded, all luggage thrown away, and then 
we stood still as death — a time in which a person thinks 
like lightning. But there proved to be no enemy, 
though in twelve hours there were 20,000 rebels where 
we stood. We inarched from two a.m. till about five 
P.M., and less than 100 — two skeleton companies — 
followed Colonel Willard into camp. My company 
was one of the two. 

"Soon, however, the regiment straggled in, though 
about 100 men were captured, for the rebel cavalry 
pressed hard on our rear." 

The story of the surrender of Harper's Ferry is 
well known. The garrison and reenforcements 
were cooped up in a basin between Loudoun, Bolivar 
and Maryland Heights, three towering hills which 
surround the junction of the Shenandoah and 
Potomac rivers. No proper fortification of these 
heights had been made, and the Confederates soon 
captured them and then stood pouring shot, shell 
and even musket balls into the Union forces, so 
close were they to the helpless soldiery below. 

"When the first shell struck," says Armstrong, "the 
scampering began. The Colonel ordered us off the 



72 Samuel Chapman Armstrong 

ground at once, and then there was an uproar and a 
confusion that baffles the imagination; the infantry, 
cavalry and artillery gathered up their arms and 
equipage and stampeded like wildfire. The regiment 
flew to where their arms were stacked, seized them and 
ran in wild disorder to the nearest ravine for shelter. 

"I saw no signs of order, but in truth I thought of 
and cared for nothing but my company. By this time 
the shells from the new battery were falling all around 
us — their whizzing was terrific. I first rushed to the 
arms and summoned my men. I then halted them, 
formed them in two ranks, and had got a large number 
of them into position when the Colonel came by and 
ordered me away at once. I started them off and kept 
in the rear, bringing up and in the later comers, and my 
men marched off in a body for some distance till I got 
out of the way into a yard — still, however, exposed to 
the shell — halted them and re-formed them, waited for 
stragglers, put things into shape again, and then pushed 
into the road, which was crowded with flying men, 
artillery wagons, horses, and everything else. 

"We kept together — I made them keep step — gave 
three cheers for Company D with a will, and marched 
down into the ravine and reported to my Colonel, who 
was trying to rearrange his scattered troops. Mine 
was about the only company that came off in good order. 
Captains, lieutenants and higher oflicers 'skedaddled' 
in a hurry. But there was no safe place in that exposed 
valley; only a dark cloud that overhung the battery- 
crowned heights around them the next morning (Sep- 
tember 15th) prevented a slaughter; and later in the 
morning, when the mist cleared, the whole force stood 
helpless under a heavy artillery fire, which lasted two 
hours before surrender was effected. We took our 
men to a little ravine and hid them in a little gutter, 



Life in the Army. J862-J865 73 

though they were by no means entirely concealed. I 
stood near the edge of the gutter with my first lieuten- 
ant, in full view and exposed to the enemy's fire. The 
shot fell first at a little distance, but soon they edged 
over toward us; our battery was all the while replying 
smartly. We were almost between the two and just 
in front of our own. My company was, I think, the 
most exposed of all; we were, at any rate, most nearly 
in range. By this time the firing had become general 
on every side. Some six batteries of Jackson's artillery 
were pouring shot and shell into our position, and the 
shrieking of the missiles as they flew was horrible. 
One eight-pound shot struck where I had been standing 
and bounded over me; another passed by me; and now 
we were assured that we were going to be cut up badly. 
With my men around me and being conscious of their 
gaze, I felt calm, and when the shot struck near me I 
didn't move a muscle, but when we moved to a place 
of much greater safety and I was sitting in the bushes 
I felt much more fear of the shells than before. I tell 
you it is dreadful to be a mark for artillery ; bad enough 
for any, but especially for raw troops; it demoralizes 
them — it rouses one's courage to be able to fight in 
return, but to sit still and calmly be cut in two is too 
much to ask. 

"Here we remained till a fresh battery was about to 
rake us through and through, when down went the 
Stars and Stripes." 

So 12,500 men and much war material fell into 
the hands of the enemy. The prisoners of war 
were then marched directly across the field, sub- 
ject to the continuous fire of a battery which 
had not yet heard the news of the surrender. 



74 Samuel Chapman Atmstfong 

This march under fire, Armstrong said, scared 
him more than anything else, 

"There we were on the hill, our arms stacked before 
us and waiting; soon the celebrated 'Stonewall' Jackson 
rode along our lines with his staff, attended also by 
our colonel and others. He rode a common-looking, 
cream-colored horse and was plainly dressed in citizen's 
clothes — a gray, dingy suit. He wore a hat which his 
men called his 'new hat,' though it was worn enough. 
The costumes of his attendants and whole army were 
dirty and torn, their beards unkempt, hats slouchy, 
muskets rusty, and they all looked as if a sirocco of red 
dust had blown over their gray uniforms. The mounted 
men rode well and looked like brave men. 

"After a while we were marched to our former camping 
ground and assigned certain limits; to which, however, 
they did not restrict us. I went down and bathed in 
the Shenandoah River with Pat Garden, and on the 
way stopped and chatted a long time with a rebel 
captain, and, like all the rest, a gentleman. 

"Not a syllable of exultation do we hear from them; 
and with good reason, perhaps — McClellan's guns had 
been roaring all day and a huge battle was waging 
some miles off [Antietam]; there might be a slip 'twixt 
cup and lip. The rebels deny themselves more than 
we do; Jackson's men devoured what rations our men 
had rejected; they also took all of our rations they could; 
they gnawed bones that lay around our camps; they 
often had for one day's meal but an ear of com; and 
when in their march a man falls down from exhaustion 
he lies there — we pick them up. Hence the celerity of 
Jackson's movements. Before the last terrible fight 
at Manassas his whole force moved ninety miles in three 
days and at the end of the march went right into action. 



Life in the Army. J862-J865 75 

The captain told me this. He says, too, that Jackson's 
soldiers never understood his movements, and don't 
care to; they 'know he is after the Yankees, will find 
the Yankees, and can whip them.' 

"We were most civilly treated by the rebels, whom 
we found to be in truth 'bone of our bone and flesh of 
our flesh'; men like ourselves; only the rebels were not 
nearly as profane as our men — in fact, they used no ' 
profane language at all. They shamed us; they fought, 
they said, not for money, but for their homes, and 
wanted the war to cease. 

"Our system of munificent bounties and fine clothing 
diverts us from the principle for which we are contending 
and few of us really know what we are fighting for. 
I felt the want of a clear apprehension of it in the hour 
of danger. 

"The officers were allowed to carry off their side arms, 
and all private property was respected; few have been 
treated as we were. The day passed in pleasant and 
cordial intercourse with the 'secesh' army; we slept 
once more on the field, and next morning we were 
marching off Bolivar Heights to be passed into our 
own lines. Jackson was very anxious to get us off — in 
fact, so anxious that he galloped off the day before and 
left us with his generals. No paroles were signed by 
us ; we were paroled as a regiment, and even that parole 
was left incomplete." 

It was customary to place captured regiments 
on parole near their homes, but the One Hundred 
and Twenty-fifth was sent with some Illinois troops 
to Chicago. 

When the plan to separate the men so widely from 
their homes became known, it caused much dissat- 



76 Samttel Chapman Armstfong: 

isf action, and was no doubt responsible for much 
of the insubordinate spirit shown on the march 
of one hundred and twenty-three miles to Annapolis, 
where they were to take the boat to Baltimore on 
the way to Chicago. It was an eventful time in 
national affairs, though monotonous and confused 
enough to the soldiers of the One Hundred and 
Twenty-fifth New York. During these "laborious 
wanderings" the battle of Antietam was ended and 
was followed soon by the Emancipation Proclama- 
tion, though the news of this event, so fraught 
with meaning to Armstrong, did not reach the 
regiment till their arrival at Annapolis. The journal 
letter continues: 

"The wanderings of Ulysses or of ^neas were more 
romantic, perhaps, but less laborious than ours. The 
Scylla and Charybdis of hunger and disease had to be 
passed every day, for we had nothing to eat but maggoty 
bacon and hard bread, which Jackson had given us — 
the best he had — and 10,000 men with such rations, 
with almost no blankets or overcoats (they were thrown 
away on the march from Martinsburg to Harper's 
Ferry), dragging their weary lengths along, devouring 
green and ripe fruit, gulping down water at every well, 
and discouraged and demoralized by previous retreat 
and disaster, were fit victims for some malady. 

"We marched five consecutive days. Of course, it 
wasn't all dulness. Sometimes our road would lie 
through a forest, and shade and cool breezes would 
delight us with relief from the dust which enveloped us. 
It was a tough job to keep our men in order, and in 
fact I had it all to do myself for my company; my 



Life in the Army. J 862- J 865 77 

orderly took a short cut, my second heutenant kept 
nosing around for something to eat, and my first 
Heutenant was just able to keep up, being a feeble man. 
Much of the time I was alone with the company, and all 
the time I had the work to do and did it as well as I 
could. At night I found the best places possible for 
them — gave their comfort the precedence. Sometimes I 
got them a good mess of hot coffee — and lost nothing 
by so doing. Such are just the times when men see 
the real animus of their officers; some captains, as soon 
as the regiment halted for the night, would scoot off 
with their officers to the best house they could find — 
and their men have cursed them for it and remembered 
it. To-day when, of the several thousand paroled 
troops here, only our regiment can be made to drill — 
the rest refusing point blank — ^my company is, they say, 
the most subordinate and dutiful in the 125th. I exact 
the same obedience that I always did, and it has been 
invariably given ; not a man have I punished for mutinous 
conduct, and yet the most experienced captain of us 
to-day sent some forty men to jail for disobedience. 

"My men talk Hke all the rest; they think they ought 
not and cannot be made to drill, but when ordered to 
' fall in ' not a man has refused as yet. I believe they 
are repaying my attention to them.* 

"No promised land greeted our eyes as we approached 
the lousy encampment at Annapolis (Sunday p.m., 
September 2 2d); the thought of seeing the ocean had 
given me new vigor on the road thither, but we could 
not see it. We slept under the trees; next day built 
brush huts and lay in them, doing nothing but eat and 
sleep, till we fell in and marched a mile and a half to 

* It must be remembered that this and all letters written by 
Armstrong during his army life were intended to be read by his 
mother and sisters only. 



78 Samuel Chapman Atmstrongf 

Annapolis — a den of rampant secessionists — took boat 
for Baltimore — two and a half hours on Chesapeake 
Bay — marched through Baltimore and saw some of 
the beauties of the 'Monumental City,' and took those 
everlasting box-and-bench cars for Chicago — forty men 
in each car; rations consisted of hard bread and partly 
cooked fat pork. We traveled slowly night and day. 
I slept nights on a board eighteen inches wide — a bench 
twenty-six inches high — ^my head resting on the legs of a 
noble fellow of the One Hundred and Twenty-sixth New 
York Regiment whose ankle was sprained at the battle 
of Maryland Heights; we formed a strong attachment; 
such private soldiers would make an invincible army." 

The One Hundred and Twenty-fifth was encamped 
at Camp Douglas, near the shores of Lake Michigan, 
where it remained from September 29th to Novem- 
ber 2ist. The time passed there was not altogethei 
irksome to Armstrong. He saw much in the wide 
stretches of the lake to enjoy and to remind him 
of his sea-girt home, and found friends in Chicago 
and duties in camp to make the time pass quickly. 

"Camp Douglas, 7 p.m., October, 1862. 
"I'll tell you the scene. On the right wing a crowd 
of fellows are singing boisterously the ' Star-Spangled 
Banner ' ; on the center of the battalion there is a prayer 
meeting; just to the left of my tent they are singing 
'Marching Along*; they have just sung 'There is rest 
for the weary.' It is wonderful how these Sabbath- 
school airs have such popularity and such a control 
over the feelings of strong men; there is nothing that 
the soldier likes so well as these simple, sweet melodies. 
The night is cold and the moonhght is lovely, extremely 



Life in the Afmy. 1 862- J 865 79 

so. [I have] a letter from mother and one from Ellen. 
Ellen mentioned her visit to Rana and Ulapalakua; 
these names waken memories that refresh me. And 
the ' church sewing society. ' I suppose the tow-headed 
fellows who once only cared for the coffee-room and for 
all sorts of shindies in corners and out of doors now 
study their neckties faithfully, select their 'Mary Anns,' 
and go home with palpitating hearts — generally two 
of such hearts get together, some way or other. A ' hog 
hunt' in Hanalei — of course no hog, but the dogs and 

the horses and busy preparations — Sam A would 

generally bring some tall yellow dog that Ponto would 
cause to quake by showing his teeth just once — all this 
I'd like; the dashing gallop, the halt of the cavalcade, 
just to shoot a little 'kolea' a quarter of a mile off — 
the prior hunt to catch the unruly dogs, the stealthy 
advance of the hunter and final escape of the bird. Then 
a moonlight ride with the Punahou girls — three cheers 
for them — fine girls they are; will compare with any. 
Long live the omnibus and Harvey the driver, and all 
the animals that draw it ! 

" Here I am, a soldier and in a queer fix — how came I 
here? But my childhood's and also my manhood's 
home will always be a Mecca to my thoughts ; they go 
back and travel from mountain top to distant horizon; 
they leap from island to island and from one mansion 
to another — I cannot follow them." 

" November 10, 1862. 
"I have just come from court, where we are trying 
an artillery first lieutenant. Our court is a terror 
to all the regiments and brigades here. We have 
power over life itself. We have good times in court, 
telling stories, eating apples, and smoking. They are 
trying to teach me to smoke and I take a whiff now and 



So Samwel Chapman Afmstfong 

then, but it don't go at all. I am not made for a smoker. 
I am kept constantly busy all the time. 

"I am sick of the parole. I wish to be in the field. 
It galls me to think of my chum, Arch. Hopkins, in 
the advancing army and I here ; but we may be relieved 
soon — shall be if Bumside makes a big stroke. 

"I have a first-rate company of boys — they obey me 
better than I ever obeyed any one else." 

At length the regiment was returned to Wash- 
ington for fiirther duty. 

" Michigan Southern Railroad, 
" November 21, 1862. 

"Chicago is about five miles in the rear. We are 
dashing over the prairie in elegant passenger cars. I 
am with my company, or a part of it — forty-eight of 
us in one car. It is nearly dark. I have just witnessed 
a glorious sunset on the prairie. I am writing by the 
dim light of a car kerosene lamp — ^the boys are all gay; 
there is a banjo a-going, entertaining us with some 
rampageous jig — others are singing the beautiful 
Sunday-school melody, 'We Shall Know Each Other 
There.' It is a scene that cannot be described — it is 
never the same for two successive minutes ; a Httle while 
ago all hands were singing 'John Brown' with inspiring 
effect ; now all are chattering like guinea-hens. We have 
stopped a moment for wood and water. The scene 
within is intensely human, and that outside intensely 
natural — divine; there is a long, narrow belt of red 
along the horizon; the heavens are beclouded. 

"We are moving again and I can hardly write legibly. 
We are in for a four days' ride and are probably bound 
to Washington — whether to be sent into barracks or 
to Texas, with Hunter to South Carolina or with 



Life in the Army. J862-J865 8i 

Burnside to Richmond, we know not — this is a most 
uncertain Hfe. 

"This has been a day of breaking up and an awfully 
hard day for me, having no officers; one having resigned, 

the first lieutenant, and Tom S gone home on 

a furlough. I have lost from my company about six- 
teen by desertion; the regiment has lost about 300. 
After we were paroled the men had little conscience 
about desertion. It is almost impossible to keep a 
paroled regiment together. 

"The boys are getting quieter as it grows dark and 
many are asleep, though it is no later than six o'clock; 
the evenings are very long; it is dark at about 5 p. m. 

"My faithful servant, John Q , sits by my side. 

I sometimes call him my 'Man Friday' or 'My Thief.' 
He is singularly devoted. He is a little Canadian 
Frenchman — talks the funniest English — has a wife 
and four children in Troy. I have detailed him from 
my company to wait upon me and nothing can equal 
his fidelity. He makes fires, does washing, blacks my 
boots, picks up my clothes when I throw them down, 
looks at every object he sees as created for my comfort, 
and if he thinks anything will contribute to that he 
takes it — ^hence I call him my thief. He is utterly 
indescribable. I can hardly look at him without 
laughing. Thinking that his sitting by me would inter- 
fere with my writing, he has been standing up and 
walking about the car for an hour. Such is my servant 
Q ; I have not told the half." 

The regiment arrived at Washington November 
25th, and for the next three months it wandered 
among the minor military stations of Virginia. 
Both officers and men were ignorant alike of the 



82 Samuel Chapman Armstrong 

meaning of their frequent changes of camp and of 
the events going on about them. They knew 
only the discomfort of cold and snow and night 
marches, and, on the other hand, the pleasures 
of camp-life, comrades round a camp-fire, the 
arrival of home letters, impromptu gaieties among 
the officers, and the never-failing charm of life 
under canvas. 

The war dragged on during this most discouraging 
of winters. In the month of November the North 
had been cheered by the news of Union victories 
in the West; but McClellan, in command of the 
Army of the Potomac, still awaited that condition 
of entire readiness to which he looked for success. 
At length, wearied by waiting, the President 
removed McClellan and appointed Bumside to his 
command. Burnside, unable to resist the popular 
clamor for action at any cost, fought the disastrous 
battle of Fredericksburg on December 17th and 
after it lay fronting the foe, but unwilling and 
unable to join battle. 

The One Hundred and Twenty-fifth New York 
played a humble part in these larger movements ; held 
as a reserve force for the Army of the Potomac, 
it was shifted here and there in conformity with its 
movements. 

Armstrong thoroughly enjoyed this winter cam- 
paign. His health was excellent. " I do nothing 
but eat, sleep and study tactics," he wrote. Indeed, 
with no harassing home cares, in no immediate 



Life in the Army. J862-J865 83 

danger of battle, and in a congenial position, with 
good pay, why should he not be happy? He 
expected to save most of his salary for the year 
and at the end of that time to retire from the army, 
if indeed the war was not over by that time. 

But in spite of the easy-going camp life, this 
positive responsible experience in affairs was grad- 
ually maturing him. He wrote to his mother and 
sisters : 

"I am sorry you felt so about my enlisting. No 
great advantage is gained without risk, and the service 
has so far been of the greatest advantage to me. It has 
been worth far more to me than so many months of 
college life. I have not found it demoralizing. I 
have gained rather than lost spiritually since I entered it. 

"Ladies here visit the hospitals and do something 
for the need};^; fashionable women do this because of 
the promptings of their better natures, not always for 
the popularity of the thing. Now at this time and 
distance I look back upon the few times I taught in 
the Kawaiahao Sunday-school with far greater satis- 
faction than upon my labours in the 'Foreign Church* 
Sunday-school. I should be glad to hear that all the 
family had begun to labor in the Kawaiahao Sunday- 
school, though in order to do it they did not attend the 
other. I hope the girls will imitate you in pursuing an 
earnest philanthropic policy worthy of their father. 
I never got one-quarter as much real good from English 
preaching as I did from teaching those native children. 

" It is pleasant at the time to sit under good preaching 
and hard to give it up; but should the girls attend 
Fort Street church evenings — as father did — and 
Sunday mornings teach the Kanaka children, and on 



84 SamocI Chapman Atmstfong 

the way home drop in at the hospital and just go from 
bed to bed and speak a word, or go out among the 
native houses back of our house, there they will find 
sick who will greatly need little comforts; old women 
are plenty around our neighborhood who are desti- 
tute — help such. 

"This is my earnest advice from the field, before a 
wary, subtle and powerful enemy. No one in the 
wild scene around me — of men building huts and fires, 
some shouting and laughing or swearing, of snow falling 
in beautiful myriad flakes — no one, I say, would imagine 
that I am writing such counsel on this old box-cover. 
But I am in earnest. My position and its possibilities 
cause me to look at things seriously. 

"If you find some are better sympathisers in your 
good work than others, just quietly have less to do 
with the latter and more with the former. Let them 
alone in word and in deed. Don't be discouraged if 
the devil takes a new tack to defeat his enemies by 
setting them at loggerheads. It will come out all 
right." 

Regarding his own part in the great struggle 
there is a securer tone; he wrote the Christmas Eve 
before the Emancipation Proclamation went into 
effect : 

"I learn to-night that Burnside and Seward have 
resigned. What to do as things now look I don't 
know — what am I fighting for? But the first day of 
January is at hand — possibly the greatest day in 
American history — when the sons of Africa shall be 
free. To wait until that day I am content, and then I 
shall know for what I am contending — for freedom and 
for the oppressed. I shall then be willing to go into the 



Life in the Atmy. J862-f865 85 

fight, and you will feel less grieved if I fall for such a 
cause. You and I will then have occasion to congratu- 
late ourselves that our family is represented in the 
grea.test struggle of modern times for the most sacred 
principles. 

"I tell you thinking men are more and more largely 
of the opinion that the Southern Confederacy is a fixed 
fact, and I am inclined to it, but I have none the less 
faith in the ultimate triumph of right. Possibly God 
will crown our arms with success after the ist of 
January, for then we shall be fighting for a principle. 
I am curious to see what will turn up." 

A letter written January 15 th to a college friend 
strikes a vein of reflective philosophy which appears 
in his letters with increasing frequency and became 
in later life the dominating influence in his thoughts. 

" I know it is dangerous to tell of one's deep purposes — 
the profoundest resolutions are so weak; but without 
sickness or mutilation I shall not hope to see my friends. 
So long as I am of the army I shall be in it, unless, like 
you, I am laid down by sickness, and there is no present 
prospect of that. I like the army and I am devoted, I 
trust, to our cause. Besides, a soldier's life is a constant 
life, and for that I am the more satisfied with it; we 
profess to be soldiers and are soldiers; how many of our 
other professions are realized in the same manner? 
I tell you, chum, civil life is more or less of a humbug — 
rather more. Christian men walk arm in arm with the 
devil, and are in thousands of cases — shall I say it? — 
hypocrites. Since I entered the army I have become 
more hilarious, more jocose than before, but I believe 
an honester man. 



86 Samuel Chapman Armstrong 

"We hold ourselves in readiness to fight, and if 
prepared to sacrifice life, how much more prepared to 
sacrifice things of smaller moment; our position keeps 
us in a generous, manly frame of mind. 

"Well, chum, I'm rolling over lots of wild schemes in 
my head, and D. V. one of these days I'll strike out; I 
want you along. But mind — effort leads to success — 
there is a point where one ends and the other begms, 
and here lies the difference in men. One man will not 
do a thing until he snail see exactly where this point 
shall be ; another cares not if between where effort stops 
and success commences there is a gulf, be it ever so wide. 
Such are the extremes ; men are ranged all along between 
— I rather lean toward the latter extreme. Where the 
eye of sense sees no continuity, but labor and its 
results widely separate, a certain faith steps in and binds 
them together, and trusting to this faith some men will 
go forward as freely as if there were no break, no doubt, 
for just here is the place of doubt." 

There were a few colored servants in the regiment, 
from whom he received his first impressions of the 
Negro race. He at first thought them "worse than 
Kanakas, " but began presently to respect them in 
theory, if not in practice. 

"Chum, I am a sort of abolitionist, but I haven't 
learned to love the Negro. I beHeve in universal 
freedom; I believe the whole world cannot buy a single 
soul. The Almighty has set, or rather limited, the 
price of one man, and until worlds can be paid for a 
single Negro I don't believe in selling or buying them. 
I go in, then, for freeing them more on accotmt of 
their souls than their bodies, I assure you." 



Life in the Afmy. J862-J865 87 

This mention of the Negro is the last for several 
months — indeed, until he took command of a 
regiment of colored soldiers in November of the 
following year. 

During the month of February the One Hundred 
and Twenty-fifth was removed to Centreville, 
Virginia, where it remained in camp for three months. 
This was a period which fulfilled a young officer's 
dreams of delight and which Armstrong has de- 
scribed as follows: 

"Summer reigns in Centreville — the place is lovely — 
windy and awfully dusty. Our camp looks gay. Along 
the line of privates' tents there are double rows of young 
cedar and pine trees which have been transplanted, and 
they create a cool shade for the men and make our camp 
really romantic. There are over six tall cedar trees 
around and overshadowing my tent, a bower of ever- 
greens in front and two small tents in the rear, all 
connecting. I call it luxury. I like it. Camp life is 
gay, though there are interruptions, of course. I'll 
tell you my pleasures. One is visiting the pretty 
secesh girls in the neighborhood. I am on very good 
terms with many of them and we have lively times. 
Generally go out to see them (in fact, we only can) 
on Sunday afternoons. There are also many sensible 
people, but being young and foolish I incline to the 
aforesaid girls. Then it is pleasant to go out after 
dress parade and hear the brigade band play at 
'retreat' (sundown)." 

While in Centreville he was detailed to serve on 
one or more military courts-martial, a duty to 



88 Samuel Chapman Armsttongf 

which he was often thereafter subject, and one 
which — though he calls it "too dreadfiil, too sick- 
ening" — yet carried with it a certain prestige as a 
recognition of an officer's judgment and standing. 

But Centreville, lovely, dusty, windy Centre- 
ville, with its picnics and pretty girls, was an 
episode which came too quickly to a close. June 
25 th came the order that the One Hundred and 
Twenty-fifth was to break camp and join the 
famous Second Army Corps, then commanded by 
General Hancock at Gum Springs. This move 
brought Armstrong at once to the front of the 
stage of war. 

While the One Hundred and Twenty-fifth had been 
encamped at Centreville the battle of Chancellors- 
ville had been fought, not far away. This striking 
Confederate victory encouraged Lee in the belief 
that the time had come for an invasion of the 
North. Nothing could so effectively hamper the 
movements of Grant, who was hammering at the 
gates of Vicksburg, as the fact that some great 
Union city was in danger. So without loss of time 
Lee pushed northward into Pennsylvania, and after 
him followed Hooker with the Army of the Poto- 
mac, which he had successfully reorganized and 
which was eager for a fight. The One Hundred 
and Twenty-fifth marched rapidly to Gum Springs, 
and together with the rest of the Second Corps 
was hurried northward toward Gettysburg, where 
the whole army was gathering tmder General Meade. 



Life in the Afmy. J862-J865 89 

The battle of Gettysburg, Armstrong's first trial 
of real warfare, is described at length in letters to 
his mother. It seems as if he craved to make clear 
to her the many and vivid impressions which 
thronged his brain after the battle was over. But 
the part played by any one man in a great battle 
runs like a single thread through the great fabric 
of the whole contest, and in order to be compre- 
hended must be seen in relation to the whole. 

On the morning of July 2, 1863, the Union and 
Confederate forces were drawn up in two curved 
confronting lines, separated by a distance varying 
fr®m half a mile to two miles. The intervening 
space was broken by wooded areas and a brook 
or two, and bounded on the south by the hill of 
Round Top; on the north it was open toward the 
town of Gettysburg. The right wing of the Federal 
forces, stretching toward the northeast, embraced 
Cemetery Hill, near which, within the range both 
of its batteries and the Confederate guns of 
Seminary Ridge, the Second Corps made its first 
appearance on the battle-field. 

On the afternoon of July 2d Lee advanced to 
the attack. He was met by the Third and Second 
Corps, which suffered severely but succeeded in 
repulsing him. Of this day Armstrong writes, 
after all is over: 

" Battle-field near Gettysburg. 
"The night before the battle we lay out in the woods, 



go Samuel Chapman Atmsttong; 

five miles from Gettysburg. All was quiet, and as I 
was lying on my back in the open air, looking up into 
the sky through the tall and leafy oak trees, I wondered 
what would happen on the morrow. I knew I might 
at that hour on the night following be as inanimate as 
the sods under me and my soul have gone up to its last 
account. I felt no quaking, but an anxiety for my own 
future condition and for those who loved me on earth. 
I soon fell asleep" and slept soundly. 

"On the 2d of July we were drawn up between 
two batteries (one Confederate, one Union) and sus- 
tained a severe cannonade, lying on our faces in an 
orchard — that is, most of us. I preferred to take my 
chance standing and watching the fight and seeing the 
skirmishers and sharpshooters pick each other off. 
After some time, about 5 p. m., our brigade was marched 
off to the left center, formed into line and charged into a 
valley full of rebs who were sheltered by a dense growth 
of underbrush. 

"As we advanced with fixed bayonets and began 
to fire, they yelled out from the trees, 'Don't fire 
on your own men ! ' We ceased firing, and the rebs 
who had so deceived us gave us ' Hail Columbia ' and 
dropped some of our best men. Those fellows were 
the famous ' Lotdsiana Tigers ' — but we rushed at them 
with fixed bayonets, drove them out of the brush and 
then plunged our fire into them as they ran. Many 
were within pistol shot, and the old spindle-legged, short- 
coat-tailed fellows fell headlong by the dozen; the 
bullets whistled by me by scores, but I didn't mind 
them, though all the while perfectly conscious of 
what might happen. Well, we peppered away at them 
and charged furiously and drove them like sheep. But 
we were ordered to fall back amid an enfilading fire 
from a rebel battery. We fell back and returned in 



Life in the Army. J862-J865 91 

order to our old ground, losing many men from the 
rebel canister and grape. 

"This was our first fight — my first; a long and great 
curiosity was satisfied. Men fell dead all around me. 
The sergeant who stands behind me when in line was 
killed, and heaps were wounded. In the charge after 
the rebs I was pleasantly, though perhaps dangerously, 
situated. I did not allow a man to get ahead of me." 

By means of this charge the enemy was driven 
back and the regiment retired slightly. It had lost 
one-fifth of its men, but the opposing force — the 
'Louisiana Tigers' — was completely shattered and 
lost its regimental existence. Out of 1,700 men it 
had lost 1,400. 

The One Hundred and Twenty-fifth encamped 
for the night on Cemetery Hill, Here it lay pre- 
paring for the terrible work of the morrow, which 
culminated in the famous Pickett's charge. The 
letter continues: 

"Next day I was sent to the line of skirmishers with 
my division (two companies). It was an ugly place — 
the two lines lay about 100 yards apart, rather less in 
some places, and the sharpshooters were butchering 
each other to no purpose whatever. Both were crouched 
down fiat on their faces behind fences or in the grass, 
and away they popped all the morning, killing and wound- 
ing quite a number. I took position on the advanced 
line, lying down behind some rails; but I was often on 
my feet to give orders, and then I would always hear 
bullets whistle over and past me. Finally we were 
ordered to charge the rebel skirmishers. It was a foolish 



92 Samwel Chapman Afmstrong 

order — a fatal one. I led that charge, if any one did, 
jumping to my feet and waving my sword for the men 
to follow, and rushing toward the sharpshooters, some 
of whom ran on our approach, while others waited to pick 
off a few of us. There were four captains in that charge; 
two were killed near me and one wounded. I escaped, 
though I was witliin fifty yards of the rebs. We drove 
them and took their line, but they rallied in great force 
and deliberately advanced. Then it was hot. The 
bullets flew like hail over my head and it was not safe 
lying down. Many were hit near me, and after nearly 
all our men had fallen back I ran back to the former 
line, which we held. The charge was unnecessary, but 
it was ordered. 

"After this we ceased firing on both sides, and after 
a two hours' lull the heaviest cannonade of the war 
was opened, we lying between the two fires — ^not per- 
fectly safe, for the shells often burst too soon and the 
fragments fell around us. 

"The firing was tremendous. Nothing could have 
been more impressive or magnificent. 

"Finally the rebels came out of the woods in three 
long lines several hundred yards apart, with glittering 
bayonets and battle-flags flying.* It was grand to see 
those masses coming up, and I trembled for our cause. 
I rushed to the skirmish line, saw our opportunity (I 
was then with the reserves), returned and assembled 
the reserves, and with the men and officers of the 
Eighth Ohio Voltmteers hurried toward the flank of the 
rebel lines of battle and gave them fits. Then it was 
grand. I'll tell you my fix. I was exposed to the fire 
of our own artillery from the rear, from the rebel 
batteries in front, and from the musketry of their line 
of battle. Many around me were hit, but Providence 

♦Pickett's charge. 



iLife in the Army. J862-J865 93 

spared me, although I was in advance and, if anybody 
did, led that attack. Some officers skulked behind 
a house. I felt no fear, though I never forgot that any 
moment I might fall. The responsibility and the high 
duty assigned me sustained me, and it was wonderful 
that my own men didn't shoot me ; they were so excited 
and were behind me. 

"Well, we turned the rebel flank, and no wonder, for 
we did terrible execution; besides, our batteries and 
line of battle in front were mowing them down. This 
was too much for them. The first line broke and ran; 
the second came on, were served in the same way, and 
also broke and scattered; yet they were as brave as 
lions. Their dead lay close up to our line, and one of 
their colour-bearers fell over one of our Napoleon 
field-pieces. Hundreds got behind a house and laid 
down their arms. We captured ten stands of colors. 
Thus the rebs were served all along our line, and on the 
whole it was one of the severest fights of the war and 
a glorious success for us.* 

*An account of the battle given in the Regimental History 
of the One Hundred and Twenty-fifth New York says : 

"Noticing a lull in the cannonading, Captain Armstrong 
looked around and saw the Confederate lines marching grandly 
down the slope toward our men. He immediately ordered 
the entire picket reserves and all whom he could muster — 
about seventy-five all told — to fall in and led them on the 
'double quick' about three hundred yards down the Emmets- 
burg road to get at the enemy in flank. Finding a rail fence 
at right angle to their advancing line some sixty or seventy 
yards from their extreme left, he posted his men along the rail 
fence. They took position unflinchingly, and resting their rifles 
on the top of the fence, took deliberate aim and poured a 
murderous fire into the rebel flank comprising Pettigrew's men. 
The Confederate leader afterward confessed surprise that part 
of the Eighth Ohio had been given the credit for the flank fire 
which contributed efficiently to the result. But distinct record 
should go into general history of Captain Armstrong's brave 
and skilful action at that important point of the battle. 
. . Of the five officers who served with Captain Arm- 
strong in his brave action, he was the only survivor." 



94 Samuel Chapman Armstrong 

"But I cannot describe the battle-field — the dead — 
the wounded — the piteous groans and the prayers of 
agony that went up to Heaven all night and day. The 
usual expression is 'Oh, Lord !' — it can be heard on 
every side, and when one approaches they cry for water 
most piteously. Oh, how they beg to be carried away 
to a doctor. Their hands are either half open or clutch- 
ing a cartridge or gun or ramrod; just as life left them 
death keeps them. I may here say to you that I have 
made what inward preparation I can for death. I 
keep a little volume of Psalms with me and strive to 
act the soldier of Christ. 

"Don't be anxious for me. The God above does all 
things well. There are more battles to be fought and 
I must fight. My sensations in battle are not strange. 
I feel simply resolved to do my best, to lead my men, 
and to accept my fate like a man." 

That night Lee's army stole away southward. 

The battle of Gettysburg marks a crisis in Arm- 
strong's military life and in the development of his 
character. Before Gettysburg he had already 
changed from an untried college student to a skilful 
disciplinarian with the power of obtaining obedience 
from his men at critical times; a soldier used to 
hardship: but the great battle revealed to him 
life in its deeper aspects. He faced death side by 
side with his men; he saw many dear to him die; 
he led two important charges where a high degree 
of courage and military skill were demanded, and 
he saw the greatest soldiers of his time maneuver 
their forces on a crucial field. This battle was the 



Life in the Atmy. J862-J865 95 

supreme test of those qualities of determination 
and judgment, of the power to conceive and execute 
effective action and the mastery of self in personal 
danger, which had been bom in him and which 
much of his life had tended to develop. He had 
learned his first lesson in the school of responsibility. 



CHAPTER IV 

Life in the Army — Continued 

* "Loudoun Valley, Virginia, 
" Nine miles from Harper's Ferry. 

"I have been three weeks at a time without chang- 
ing or taking off my clothes — sleeping just as I marched, 
and being so tired with long marches that when I had 
fixed my little shanty and got my supper I was glad 
enough to lie down and sleep in my clothes, with noth- 
ing over me and my boots or a canteen for a pillow. 
Many a time I have made a good meal off raw salt pork 
and ' hard tack ' (army crackers) ; sometimes off less ; 
generally, however, we have coffee three times a day. 
. . . We are now in a lovely, enchanting val- 
ley. It is a glorious day and the Sabbath day, too. 
The only quiet Sabbath for a month. There are mil- 
lions of large, rich blackberries on the hillside, and 
the soldiers have bushels of them to eat. I stewed 
some for myself in a tin cup — the first stew I ever made, 
and it was good. . . . 

" We don't know where Lee is now. 

" I like this life much, its ups and downs, its lights 
and shadows, its storms and sunshines, its weariness 
and rest. (Just stopped to eat a quart of blackberries.) 
As I resume my pencil, orders come to be ready to 
march in an hour; so our lovely encampment will soon 
be desolate." 

* Written about Jiily 20, 1862. 

96 




SAMUEL CHAPMAN ARMSTRONG ^^^^^^'';'^'^^''™^^i''''' ""^ 
THE NINTH UNITED STATES COLORED TROOPb 



Life in the Atmy* J862-J865 97 

[Written a few days later.] " We moved along down 
the valley about five miles and have bivouacked on a 
beautiful slope covered with grass. Our little tent is 
of course over us, and I resume my writing, having eaten 
another quart of rich blackberries mashed up with 
sugar and water in my cup. The face of the coun- 
try is covered with little shelter tents, and soldiers are 
as thick as bees as far as the eye can reach. This being 
in a large army is a singular thing. It makes one feel 
most insignificant." 

The Army of the Potomac was not ostensibly 
on a berrying picnic, but chasing the swift Lee, 
who easily evaded its leisurely pursuit and was 
soon out of danger. 

On July 27th, Armstrong, now promoted to the 
rank of major, left the field for the North, whither 
he was called on recruiting service. He was 
obliged to stay near New York on this nondescript 
duty, except for a trip to Alexandria, Virginia, on 
a steamship in command of 1,400 men — "deserters, 
conscripts, stragglers, and soldiers." But when 
the end of October came and with it the approach 
of winter, the time for every one to be at work, he 
felt that "the army is the place for a soldier," and 
applied for permission to rejoin his regiment in 
Virginia. 

The change had been pleasant, but he had 
felt dissatisfied with his position and prospects. 
Several prominent citizens of New York had 
tried to raise in that State a colored regiment of 



pS Samoel Chapman Armstfong 

which he was to be colonel. At about this time he 
wrote to Archibald Hopkins: 

"Here's to the heathen! Rather, here's to the 
Negro ! I say Negro or anything to get out of this. 
There's the far West, and here am I, a vagabond, a 
loafer. There are loose, lazy contrabands and why not 
' go in' ? My internal machinery can brook this dread- 
ful titter-fritteration of my time no longer. Now I'm 
not disappointed in love — there's no one to love ! I 
go in for some variation in the old song of do-nothing. 
Time won't do it; the War Department won't do it, 
and if my dander rises sufficiently I'll do it — I will. 
Yes, let us strike out — strike out old forms of life and 
thought, and ring in something new for a change." 

Owing to the opposition of the State authorities 
to the enlistment of colored men, the plan was 
never carried into execution and he returned to 
Virginia still a major, yet the idea of commanding 
black troops had taken firm hold of his mind, and 
the place of a major, a "fifth wheel where there is a 
colonel," as he wrote later, galled him. Some time 
in November he took examinations which entitled 
him to a colonelcy of colored troops. These exam- 
inations were made especially severe on account of 
the fact that only men of character, determination 
and education were wanted for the command of 
colored troops, and out of eighty-five who were 
examined at the same time but four passed. A 
lieutenant-colonelcy was soon offered him, which 
he accepted the more readily because, owing to the 



Life in the Army* J 862- J 865 99 

prolonged absence of the colonel, the active organiza- 
tion and command of the regiment would fall at 
once into his hands. 

At this time the question whether Negroes were 
enduring and patient under fire was considered an 
open one or answered vigorously in the negative. 
The War Department had been employing them 
since July, 1862, and they had shown capacity for 
daring, if not heroism, at Fort Wagner and Milliken's 
Bend ; still an officer in undertaking their command 
risked to a considerable extent his military repu- 
tation. Moreover, the Confederate Congress had 
declared that commissioned officers commanding 
"Negroes or mulattoes in armies against the Con- 
federates should be put to death for inciting servile 
insurrection or otherwise dealt with at the discretion 
of the court"; or, in the popular wording of the 
decree, that "no quarter would be given to 'nigger' 
officers." But this fact did not disturb the morale 
of the troops; on the contrary, as Armstrong wrote 
later : 

"Nothing was of more help to the newly established 
and not at all fashionable Negro service. In our weekly 
officers' meetings to study tactics and discuss the situ- 
ation, fully anticipating such treatment, we agreed 
that our men must go into battle in good shape and 
must be made the most of. We told them what to 
expect," 

Just before leaving his old regiment for the new 
command he wrote: 

'LoFC. 



loo Samuel Chapman Armstrong 

"Camp One Hundred and Twenty-fifth New York 
" Volunteer Infantry, 

"Near Brandy Station, Virginia. 

"Dear Mother: This is the last evening I shall 
ever perhaps spend with my noble old regiment, the 
One Hundred and Twenty-fifth New York. To- 
morrow I leave my brave old companions, my gal- 
lant Company D, my comrades for many months 
in pleasure and sorrow, in comfort and in suffer- 
ing. It is hard to do this; very hard. As I write, 
a band is serenading the General, playing 'When 
this cruel war is over.' It is harder than leaving my 
classmates when I left college. You cannot imagine 
the beauty and the pleasure of the relation in which 
I now stand to this regiment. 

"I write this in confidence. At first for months 
they hated me; my company hated me as they would 
Satan himself. It was because I was strict and paid 
no respect to their un-military and unmanly humors. 
But finally, especially after Gettysburg, all this changed. 
Men saw me go where death seemed almost certain 
and call upon them to follow and they did so. Men 
saw that I never flinched or failed in the longest march, 
that nothing swerved me from the line of my duty. And 
now I have the utmost confidence of almost every man 
in the regiment. I think many of my old company 
love me. I know it and I love them. They have said 
they would 'go to the devil' for me, and I know that 
they would never desert me in the hour of trial, no 
matter what dangers and terrors might be before them. 
And yet they are young, many of them but boys. Yes, 
between them and me there is almost a romantic at- 
tachment. 

" I go into untried scenes, but with no fear to meet 
the future. 



Life in the Atmy. J 862- J 565 loi 

" The Negro troops have not yet entirely proved them- 
selves good soldiers ; but if the Negroes can be made to 
fight well, then is the question of their freedom settled. 

' ' I tell you the present is the grandest time the world 
ever saw. The African race is before the world, unex- 
pectedly to all, and all mankind are looking to see 
whether the African will show himself equal to the 
opportunity before him. 

"And what is this opportunity? It is to demon- 
strate to the world that he is a man, that he has the 
highest elements of manhood, courage, perseverance, 
and honor; that he is not only worthy of freedom, but 
able to win it, so he has a chance. All men must respect 
heroism and military prowess — those possessing such 
qualities must and will be made free. They are too 
noble for slaves, and the nations will despise a country 
that attempts to enslave men who have saved her own 
constitution and independence. 

"The star of Africa is rising, her millions now for 
the first time catching the glimpse of a glorious dawn. 
Auroral gleams are lighting up the horizon of their 
future, and their future in my opinion rests largely 
upon the success of the Negro troops in this war. Their 
honor and their glory will insure the freedom of their 
race; their dishonor will result in the disbanding of the 
troops and in universal contempt for the race. I 
gladly lend myself to the experiment — to this issue. 
It will yet be a grand thing to have been identified 
with this Negro movement." 

About the middle of December came the order to 
join his new command, and Armstrong left at once 
for Benedict, Maryland, where he took charge of 
six companies of the Ninth Regiment United States 



I02 Samuel Chapman Atmstfong 

Colored Troops, then organizing with three other 
colored regiments in that place, the whole com- 
manded by General William Birney. 

"Benedict, Maryland, 
" December 17, 1863. 

"This is a horrible hole, a rendezvous for blockade 
runners, deserters, and such trash; good for nothing 
but oysters, without another redeeming trait. 

"The place is unhealthy, and many are dying of 
measles and smallpox, etc., but I was never more con- 
tented. I have brought the regiment up so that we 
have completely whipped the Seventh Colored, which 
was raised several weeks before this. Our camp is really 
beautiful, dressed in evergreens, with handsome stock- 
ades and well-graded streets, and nobody says 'boo' 
to us. Our tails are up — the Seventh keep theirs down 
and 'acknowledge the corn.' I have a fine, an excellent 
set of officers; they are full of pride and spirit, bound 
to beat anything around. ... I assure you it is 
gratifying, because the task has been laborious, diffi- 
cult, and subjected me to a good many severe tests. 
I have got along better than I expected to. 

"One of my captains was a lieutenant-colonel and is 
smart as steel. 

"I tell you this service will get to be the thing. All 
are satisfied. The men are willing, learn very quickly, 
and the regiment runs twice as smoothly as a volunteer 
regiment. 

"To-day is Sunday, but of course no preaching, no 
Sunday-school, but a day of leisure. To-day it has 
rained all day. After dinner two of my soldiers were 
buried. I saw the procession start, ordered my horse 
and followed it. It was a strange thing to see a man 
who had been bom a slave and lived the life of a slave 



Life m the Army, J 862- J 865 103 

under the lash like a dog carried to the grave with the 
Stars and Stripes shrouding his coffin, in a procession 
headed by a brass band playing a funeral dirge, escorted 
by a body of soldiers with arms reversed, and followed 
by a procession of comrades in the uniform of United 
States soldiers, under charge of three commissioned 
officers of the army. The procession reached the grave ; 
the same funeral service that is read at the funeral of 
sovereigns was read at the grave of the slave-soldier, 
and three volleys of musketry were fired over his 
coffin. 

"It was a most impressive comment upon the gran- 
deur of the struggle in which we are engaged. We are 
fighting for humanity and freedom, the South for 
barbarism and slavery. Remember, that was the 
burial of a private soldier, the humblest man in the 
army, and the funeral of a Negro who, had it not been 
for the freedom we gave him, might have been beaten 
to death and tumbled into a pit. 

"I have been visiting the hospitals to-day, where 
about 100 of my regiment are quartered. They seemed 
glad to see me. 

"But I must tell you about Christmas. These 
Negroes are used to having grand times on that day, 
and so I determined to give them some sport." 

It is interesting to note that Armstrong grasped 
thus early the importance of providing for and 
guiding the social instinct of the Negro. The 
competitive trials referred to in the next extract 
from the journal developed regimental pride, in 
which the Negroes were often lacking. 

"We officers subscribed money freely and bought 
an ox, which we roasted whole for the regiment. 



104 Samwcl Chapman Afmstfong; 

"The day's sports opened with trials of strength at 
rope-pulling, the victor always receiving a prize and 
always being greeted with vociferous cheers. After 
this they ran races for prizes, and there was some 
wonderful running. Then they had a greased pole to 
climb, with $5 on top of it, which afforded rare 
sport. Next was a chase after greased pigs which had 
all their hair cut off and had been well oiled. The 
captor was to have the pig provided he caught him 
by the tail. A lot of bags had been furnished for a 
sack-race, which passed off with great success. 

"After dinner the two regiments were drawn up facing 
each other, about ten rods apart, and the champion 
runners contested twice for a $5 prize. Also there 
was a blindfold race. My regiment won all the 
prizes and had during the day three times as much 
sport as any other. The men said they never had 
such a Christmas before. The roast ox was eaten for 
supper. During the afternoon I had most of my 
officers get horses. Some got horses, some got colts, 
some got mules, and I drilled the squad on the parade 
ground, also ran races and cut up generally: had a high 
old time. 

"I feel more in my element since being a mounted 
officer. I have got along finely with my regiment. 
Have the finest camp in the brigade, and the Ninth is 
acknowledged to lead the rest. The regiment next to 
us had six weeks the start of us, and to-day they are 
not over one week ahead of us in drill and far behind 
us in everything else. We expect to beat everything 
aroimd in everything, and we are in a fair way to 
do it." 

He also stimulated self-respect among his men by 
insisting on a high standard of neatness in their 



Life in the Army. 1 862- J 865 105 

camp and individual quarters, himself taking the 
lead with enthusiasm. He never put up a tent, 
whether for the stay of a week or of six months, 
without decorating it with such simple garlands as 
the woods afforded, setting up his books and 
pictures in a homelike way, and contriving pleasant 
arbors and approaches to shelter it. In the same 
spirit the tents of the regiment were pitched in even 
lines; trees planted to shade the company streets 
and the streets themselves neatly sanded. Said 
he, "Though I am a poor housekeeper, I am a good 
camp-maker." 

"Camp Stanton, Benedict, Maryland, 
"Februarys, 1864. 
"I am writing in my own tent. I have a man whose 
sole business is to keep my tent in good order and my 
fire a-going, and so zealous is he that on warm days 
like this he almost roasts me by the great blaze that 
he makes up. Cedar is now burning and the room is 
filled with a fragrance that exhales from the wood. 
It is almost equal to the perfume of sandalwood. My 
floor is swept eight or ten times a day, and although I 
do my best to scatter things around I don't succeed 
very well. The ' Dominie ' has a great taste for natural 
history and botany. He has decorated the room with 
boughs of holly and a cunning bird's nest nestles among 
the evergreen leaves. My furniture is simple, a bunk, 
a chair, a desk, two boxes, one for a seat and one for a 
wash-stand, comprising it all. I have several shelves 
laden with books and papers. All around the room 
are suspended on nails various articles; my sword, 
sash, rubber overcoat, woollen (blue) overcoat, haver- 



io6 Samuel Chapman Armsttongf 

sack, clothes, and the Dominie's things. Everything 
is neat, tidy, comfortable and homelike. I have plenty 
of books, as Tennyson, Virgil, Pope's ' Iliad,' Mitchell's 
' Lectures on Astronomy,' 'Kavanagh' and 'Outre Mer,' 
Professor Wilson's 'Noctes Ambrosianae' (which are 
magnificent), etc.; also many military works, as 
Jomini, Schults, etc. 

"I never enjoyed myself better than here. Have 
plenty of visitors. Many of the officers sing. Dom- 
inie's tenor is excellent and we frequently serenade the 
camps. Our collection of songs is rare, and we some- 
times get a lot of officers together and prolong our 
hilarity over oysters, etc., till late. There are plenty 
of splendid fellows here among the officers. The 
colored troops have much better officers than the 
State volunteer regiments." 

Writing twenty years later of these days he says : 

"How we studied and drilled! General Bimey 
driving us hard. He proved himself a great organizer 
of camps. His service in Maryland in raising colored 
troops was a bold, successful and grand work. Secre- 
tary Stanton was back of him. President Lincoln 
did not seem to feel quite so sure of a step not strictly 
legal. 

"Many a master who came to get a receipt for his 
human property was halted by a sentinel who two 
days before had been his slave. 

"The old flag in our camp was like the brazen serpent 
raised in the wilderness. Once in sight of it, across the 
sentry's beat was instant freedom. How the men 
sang at night around their camp fires ! Much of it was 
rude, uncouth music, and the officers complained of it. 
One night I was drawn out of my tent by a wonder- 



Life in the Army. J862-I865 107 

ful chorus. The men had struck up an old church 
hymn — 'They look like men of war; all arm'd and 
dress' d in uniform, they look like men of war.'* It 

*THE ENLISTED SOLDIERS 
Sung by the men of the United States colored volunteers. 

1. Hark! listen to the trumpeters, 
They call for volunteers; 

On Zion's bright and fiow'ry mount. 
Behold the officers. 

Refrain. — They look like men, they look like men, 
They look like men of war; 
All arm'd and dress' d in uniform. 
They look like men of war. 

2. Their horses white, their armor bright, 
With courage bold they stand, 
Enlisting soldiers for their King 

To march to Canaan's land. — Refrain. 

3. It sets my heart quite in a flame 
A soldier thus to be; 

I will enlist, gird on my arms. 
And fight for liberty. — Refrain. 

4. We want no cowards in our band 
That will their colors fly; 

We call for valiant-hearted men 
Who're not afraid to die. — Refrain. 

5. To see our armies on parade, 
How martial they appear ! 

All armed and dressed in uniform. 
They look like men of war. — Refrain. 

6. They follow their great General, 
The great Eternal Lamb, 

His garment stained in His own blood. 
King Jesus is His name. — Refrain. 

7. The trumpets sound, the armies shout. 
They drive the host of hell; 

How dreadful is our God to adore. 
The great Immanuel ! — Refrain. 



io8 Samuel Chapman Armstfong 

fitted the scene, and their hearty singing of it sent 
through me a sensation I shall never forget. It became 
their battle-hymn. These were the dramatics of war; 
the dynamics came later. 

"I did not then realize how wise it was to put the 
black man into uniform and use him as a United States 
soldier, though the pay was but $7 a month; white 
soldiers received $13 a month.* Treating him as 
a soldier made him one. The Negro rallied grandly to 
the duty required. There was, as there has been ever 
since, more in him than we expected to find and more 
than his old masters ever dreamed of. 

"Both armies despised our black troops in those 
days; but before the war was over they were drilling 
Negro troops in the Capitol Square at Richmond, Vir- 
ginia, to help save the Confederacy, 

"I was called to command a party to hunt a South- 
erner who had shot, under excitement, one of our 
recruiting officers, and had the unpleasant duty of 
searching the house of a charming family who had most 
kindly entertained me the week before. 

"My soldiers wished to do their whole duty. As I 
galloped one day by the pioneer corps, who were re- 
turning from woodchopping, they solemnly presented 
axes. 

"The sentries were loyal, but not always clear-headed. 
A party of officers lugging slyly into camp a keg of 
beer were halted with 'Who comes here?' 'Comrades, 
bearing the body of a deceased brother,' was the reply. 
The solemn-sounding words and the dignity of death 
overcame the awe-struck guard, who let them in with- 
out the countersign. 

"Mess life was usually hilarious. The 'Anvil Chorus ' 

*After May 22, 1864, the Negro troops received pay equal to 
the whites. 



Life in the Atmy. J 862- J 865 109 

was produced with great effect with tin cups, knives 
and tin plates. 

"With all the care in selecting men, the mortality 
was great. The men lived and were clothed differently 
than usual. Pneumonia carried off many. The new 
quarters, built of logs and mud, were damp. Even on 
their own ground, with no climatic change whatever, 
the death rate was high. One reason was, no doubt, 
their superstitious fears excited by sickness. The 
doctors afterward said that the black soldiers bore 
surgical operations with wonderful fortitude, but in 
ordinary sickness their pluck failed and they gave up." 

At Benedict was a school for Negro soldiers, 
probably an excellent example of the military 
schools that were springing up here and there in the 
South wherever colored soldiers were stationed, 
and it is interesting to note that to Armstrong was 
given the presidency of the "college." The jour- 
nal resumes: 

"There are five ladies from Boston at this place 
teaching, sent at General Birney's request by a Boston 
society. I am in charge of the college, which is an old 
secesh tobacco barn, cleaned out, ventilated, and illu- 
minated by a few tallow candles ; well seated and holds 
500 men. The school is held two hours by day and two 
hours in the evening, and it is a sight to see the soldiers 
groping after the very least knowledge. They are 
principally learning their letters; a pitiable sight, and 
thank slavery for it. In book knowledge, in drill and 
all military duty they make remarkable progress. 
At such a time one realizes the curse that has been upon 
them. Slavery makes brutes of men, and then refuses 



lio Samwel Chapman Aumstfong 

to give them freedom because they are so brutish. I 
think those men have a good reason for fighting and 
that they will fight." 

"Steam Propeller and Transport Ship 'United 
States,' 
"March 4, 1864, 7:30 o'clock p. m. 
"Chesapeake Bay, near mouth of Patuxent River. 

"Dear Mother: Most snugly and cozily am I ensconced 
in an arm chair in the ladies' saloon of this new and 
elegant steamer of 1,278 tons. 

"We have on board 1,300 colored soldiers — one and 
one-third regiments — bound for Hilton Head, South 
Carolina. The evening is lovely as lovely can be, but 
rather chilly. So, after going all over the ship and see- 
ing that the men were as comfortable as could be, and 
drinking in delight for awhile as I viewed from the top of 
the bulwarks the sky, the stars, the gorgeous sunset 
clouds and the glassy sea, I have taken my portfolio from 
my valise and in this quiet place turned my thoughts 
homeward. At my feet lies our noble St. Bernard and 
Newfoundland dog Charlie — the noblest brute I ever 

saw ; at my elbow sits ' Dominie ' H (the chaplain), . 

. . Every one is gay to-night. This is so far a pleasure 
sail. Some are playing cards, some are singing, some 
reading, all are merry. But who will come back of all 
these whose hearts now throb with life, whose eyes are 
lit with the hopes within them? Never mind; our 
term may indeed be a little shorter for this war, but at 
the longest how brief it is ! And so I don't bother 
myself much about possibilities, but strive rather to 
obey the calls of the present and trust in God. 

" If I fall, be assured that I never was better prepared 
than now for the worst. Since entering this branch of 
the service I have felt the high duty and sacredness of 



Life in the Afmy. J662-J865 iii 

my position. It is no sacrifice for me to be here; it is 
rather a glorious opportunity, and I would be nowhere 
else than here if I could, and nothing else than an officer 
of colored troops if I could. This content, this almost 
supreme satisfaction has shed a rich glow upon my 
life. I have felt, and do feel, like a very apostle of 
human liberty striking the deadliest possible blow at 
oppression ; and what duty is more glorious than that ? 
What nobler work has been given to man since the 
Reformation? I feel more than ever in sympathy 
with the good, the holy, the just and the true, and the 
blessedness of religion has descended upon me with a 
sweetness, a beauty, a richness and a power that it 
never had before. Besides ail this, I have a certain 
consciousness that I am no disgrace to this sacred 
service, which I think is well based. I certainly could 
ask no pleasanter relations than I now hold to my 
fellow officers." 

The expedition to Hilton Head was made for the 
purpose of reenforcing Port Royal, a post which, 
though surrounded by rebels, had been in the hands 
of the Federals since November, 1861. There was 
little actual fighting. The picket line, twenty miles 
in length, was in no place over a mile from the 
enemy, and at many points the outposts were only 
separated by a stream, so that occasional friction 
occurred. 

Here Armstrong stayed four weary months, 
the routine of camp life broken only by occasional 
raids in the enemy's territory — casual affairs which 
gave no satisfaction or definite results, but which 
served to increase his confidence in his black troops — 



112 Samuel Chapman Atmsttong 

and by the social pleasures which he extracted 
from almost any situation. Early in August he 
wrote to his friend Archibald Hopkins, who was 
engaged in active service: 

"For myself I am one of the most miserable of men. 
I never was so wretched. No disappointment of love, 
no crushing sorrow could so prostrate me as the feeling 
that I am idling and loafing on these sands, while my 
old comrades and others are struggling so nobly in 
Virginia. ... I would rather grind a hand-organ 
for the edification of the mule-teams of the Army 
of the Potomac than review a dress parade of a 
regiment down here. 

"Thus it is always. Some men's hopes must be 
realized and the hopes of some must fail. God only 
is great, and any service of His is good enough for mor- 
tals. The fact is, I am mortally jealous! " 

About August 5 th came the welcome order to 
return to Virginia. There the main action centered 
about Petersburg, which had been in a state of 
siege since June, and toward this city the Ninth 
Regiment, still part of Birney's corps, now under 
General Butler in the Army of the James, was 
directed to move. Their way inland was a hard- 
fought one. Severe brushes occurred at various 
Confederate breastworks and other fortifications. 
Armstrong was overjoyed to be again where some- 
thing was going on. "We are botmd to glory 
with a fair wind," he wrote; "nothing but working 
and fighting ahead." 



Life in the Army. 1862- J 865 113 

The following incident of the approach to Peters- 
burg, which occurred when he was ordered to attack 
a certain formidable breastwork, shows the con- 
trol of his troops which Armstrong had acquired 
through his constant watchfulness for their comfort : 

"Next day there was a bloody assault on the enemy's 
works, which were captured, and my regiment was 
sent to occupy a portion of them. I went in under a 
heavy front and flank fire, got into position in the rifle- 
pits, and for fifteen minutes or more we had it hot and 
heavy. My men fell fast, but never flinched. They 
fired coolly and won great praise. I walked along the 
line three or four times, and as the work was hardly 
breast high was much exposed. I passed many killed 
along my path, and the wounded went in numbers to 
the rear. Finally, however, the rebs flanked us on 
the left and forced us out. Standing there in line we 
were harassed by an unseen foe hidden in the bushes. 
It was impossible to hold the position, and I ordered 
them to walk, and they did so the whole distance, shot 
at by the unseen enemy as they went, and having to 
climb over fallen trees and go through rough ground. 
They got back panting with fatigue and lay down 
exhausted. But orders came, and off we went to retake 
the rifle-pits. 

"My worn-out regiment and half another were 
ordered to do what a whole white regiment had done 
before, and to take works which twice their number had 
just failed to hold against the enemy. We were to 
attack five times our number, and that, too, behind 
strong works protected by timber felled in front. 

"It was madness in our general; it was death to us, 
sure death — ^total annihilation. The order was given. 



114 Samuel Chapman Atmsttongf 

' Forward !' Off we went cheerfully to our doom. I 
never felt more calm and ready for anything, but just 
as we had advanced a few yards another general came 
up and ordered us to halt and not attack. He saved 
us. He was General Terry." 

By the end of August the Ninth Regiment was 
encamped before Petersburg. The army, though 
commanded by Grant, was in a demoralized con- 
dition, owing in part to the recent defeat at Cold 
Harbor and in part to the low character of our 
boimty-paid troops, who were constantly arriving 
as reenforcements. The insubordination of the 
white troops probably did not extend to the colored, 
who had their separate quarters and messes, and 
whose officers were, as has been said, men of unusual 
courage and character. 

Armstrong was marked even among his fellow 
officers for his daring. While encamped before 
Petersburg he selected for his men a sheltered 
ravine out of reach of the enemy's gims, while he 
himself pitched his tent on an elevation close by, 
across which the enemy's cannon-balls were con- 
tinually ricochetting, placing him in hourly peril 
by day and night. He felt that the morale of 
the colored troops could only be maintained by a 
commander who showed himself superior to fear. 
As illustrating this habitual self-command a brother 
officer relates the following incident: Armstrong 
came into his tent one day, having ridden from his 
own quarters during a severe shelling, and remarked 



Life in the Atmy. J 862- J 865 115 

that a shell had burst directly in front of him. " I 
instinctively reined in my horse!" he said, as if 
apologizing for an act of cowardice. 

"Although a martinet in discipline where military 
principle was concerned," says the same officer, 
" his soldiers felt toward him a regard that amounted 
almost to deification." 

The siege at Petersburg continued through 
summer and fall, with but few sorties on either side, 
the pickets alone keeping up a desultory warfare. 

"In the Trenches Before Petersburg, 
"August 30, 1864. 

"The world moves on, and so do regiments. There 
is nothing so unsettled as a soldier's camp or life; you 
never know here what to expect. One fine afternoon 
I was ordered to retake a portion of the picket line 
from which our troops had fallen back. I went expect- 
ing a fight. Charged the lost line with three companies, 
but the enemy did not wait for us and ran without 
even firing a piece. 

"We had a beautiful little camp over the Appomat- 
tox near Bermuda Hundred, at Hatchett's. I have 
everything as regular and handsome and clean as pos- 
sible, and my camps are not only the cleanest, but the 
handsomest in the brigade. I always work quickly, 
and give clear, positive instructions to my officers, 
and they obey my orders with utmost fidelity as a 
general thing. Here is an instance. Yesterday our 
sister and rival regiment, the Seventh United States 
Colored Troops, and my own, the Ninth United States 
Colored Troops, were ordered to establish permanent 
camps in the second line of works. I went to work 



ii6 Samuel Chapman Armstrong 

and in four hours had strong, massive bomb-proofs 
built. The other regiment had only burrowed a few 
holes in the dirt, and when last night we were heavily 
shelled, my men were as safe and comfortable as they 
could have been in Kawaiahao church, while the other 
regiments arovmd us were crawling into holes and 
dodging about, well scared. 

"The fact was, I sent my men out and 'gobbled up* 
all the spades, axes and logs in the neighborhood. 
During this shelling I sat in my tent, where I am now 
writing, and lifting my eyes could see the mortar shells 
gliding like meteors through the sky; some going and 
some coming. Several shells burst quite near us, not 
over I GO yards off. On such occasions I seldom seek 
shelter, although I require my men to take it. The 
chances of an individual are very great, and besides 
there is nothing very dangerous about shells unless 
they begin to drop close by. It is a splendid sight to 
see shelling at night, to watch a huge 13 -inch mortar 
shell shoot far up into the heavens and then seem to 
glide awhile among the stars, a ball of light, then 
slowly descend in terror and vengeance into the heart 
of a great city whose spires are in sight from here. . . ." 

"I forgot in my last to tell you about the flag of 
truce in our campaign at Deep Bottom, over the James 
River. It was to bury our dead, and being in command 
of our picket line that day, I was present. We met 
the rebels half-way between the lines. I saw thousands 
of them swarming their works, and scores came to 
meet us, bringing on stretchers the ghastly, horribly 
mutilated dead whom we had lost in the charge of the 
day previous. The sight and smell would have made 
you wild, but we are used to it. I had no particular 
business, and so I talked with the rebel officers and 
found myself conversing with Colonel Little, of the 



Life in the Army. J 862- J 865 117 

Eleventh Georgia Regiment, and with the rebel General 
Gary. They were very gentlemanly, and we had a 
delightful chat, or rather argument, of two hours; 
the Colonel being very social and jovial, and the General 
trying hard to convince me that slavery is divine and 
that I was wrong. I frankly told him that I was a 
foreigner, a Sandwich Islander, who had no local 
sympathies; but seeing the great issue to be that of 
freedom or slavery for 4,000,000 souls, had given myself 
to the war cheerfully, and counted no sacrifice too 
great for the cause. I told them I commanded a 
colored regiment, and all this, instead of disgusting 
them, seemed to win their respect; rather unusual, 
Gince officers of Negro troops are commonly despised 
in the South. 

" The General said he thought it more reasonable 
to fight, as I was doing, for a principle than to fight 
merely to restore a Union which was only a compact 
and to which they were not morally bound when they 
considered the other side had violated the agreement. 
The truth is, I partially agreed with him. The Union 
is to me little or nothing. I see no great principle 
necessarily involved in it. I see only the 4,000,000 
slaves, and for and with them I fight. The rebs told 
me they buried a good many of our colored men, for 
they were the very men we had fought the day before. 

"Well, the General tried to show me the evils of 
slavery were imaginary, that it is divine and all right, 
etc. His manner and language were charming. He 
'.vas a graduate of Harvard (class of '54, I believe). 
He did not. hovvrever, admit that slavery was the corner- 
stone of the Confederacy, and he further assured me 
that Alexander Stephens, who used that famous 
expression about slavery being the corner-stone, etc., 
liad retracted his language ai a subsequent time, 



ii8 Samuel Chapman Armstfong 

and his opinion is, I think, strongly supported in 
the South." 

The period spent in the trenches before Petersburg 
was a time of heavy responsibilities for Armstrong. 
He was obliged to work day and night strengthening 
and improving the works held by his brigade; and 
at the end of this time, about October ist, when 
his regiment was removed from Petersburg and sent 
to a point very near the rebel lines, seven miles from 
Richmond, he succumbed to fatigue and went to 
the officers' hospital near Fort Monroe, only a few 
rods from the scenes of his later life-work. While 
he was there his regiment was sent to attack Fort 
Gilmer, one of the main defenses of Richmond. 
Concerning this attack he wrote home as follows : 

"My regiment was sent alone and unsupported to 
attack a tremendously powerfid fort supported by two 
other strong forts, also by a heavy line of breastworks, 
and before this immense line was a very large, deep 
ditch and slashed timber for over half a mile, making 
it almost impossible to even get to the enemy's lines. 
The Ninth went in nobly, was raked and cut to pieces, 
and finally fell back before a hellish fire of grape, 
canister, shrapnel and shell from three forts. 

"To go forward would have been certain destruction. 
The Negroes never turned their backs, but walked 
steadily 'into the mouth of hell' until the commanding 
officer ordered a retreat. About one-third of the 
regiment was hors de combat. No men were ever 
braver than the slaves of Maryland. I was of course 
absent, but the officers of the regiment were heard after 




SAMUEL CHAPMAN ARMSTRONG 
Taken about the time of his sojourn at the officers' hospital at Plampton, Va. 



Life in the Afmy* J 862- J 865 119 

they came back to curse the general who managed 
them so badly, and to 'thank God that Colonel Arm- 
strong was not there, for if he had been there they 
would all have been in hell or Richmond.' They don't 
expect to get the order from me to retreat. I only tell 
the truth when I tell you that I am numbered among 
the fighting men. Still I think I should never sacrifice 
my men for nothing; such a course is wrong morally." 

On returning to the field he was put for a short 
time in command of the second brigade of his 
division, and on November 3d was promoted to the 
colonelcy of the Eighth United States Colored 
Troops, which were stationed close to the borders 
of Richmond. Of this new command he wrote : 

"The men are tried soldiers, and it is considered the 
best colored regiment in Birney's division. I have 
a splendid camp and a very fine brass band — ^the only 
one in the division. Men all live in log houses, so do I. 
Have cozy fireplaces, where we sit and think hour after 
hour or read. The 'Household Book of Poetry' is 
everything to me; it is my constant friend, but unluckily 
books are scarce, and it is in great demand. It is now 
on a visit to headquarters first brigade of my division, 
and my own brigade commander sends frequently for 
it, and others — all wish to get it. The collection is, I 
think, a superb one. One of the sweetest things in 
it is 'Lycidas,' by Milton. Have you noticed the 
'Trailing Arbutus,' by Rose Terry? The last stanza 
is exquisite. 

"There is some talk of arming my regiment with 
the famous and deadly Spencer repeating rifle. The 
rebels are in terror of it, and it is given to but very 



I20 Samuel Chapman Armstrong 

few regiments in the army. It is very elaborate and 
expensive. 

"We are kept constantly on the qui vive. The 
enemy is near. I can sit at my tent door and see their 
long line of earthworks, with immensely strong 
forts thrown in every quarter of a mile. Their guns are 
pointed at us and ours at them. I can see their tents 
easily. They can at any time throw a i co-pound shell 
right into my camp, yes, a dozen of them; we are in easy 
artillery range, but both sides seem to have tacitly 
agreed not to fire, and so we Uve on, perfectly at ease 
and always ready. The pickets stand watching each 
other some 300 yards apart, often much less. During 
the last two nights they have attacked our lines at 
Bermuda Hundred and got us all up, which was not 
agreeable. . . . 

"I have a splendid regiment and a splendid oppor- 
tunity; shall do or die; shall be distinguished or 
extinguished — that is, if I shall have the chance." 

But the chance never came. Winter and the 
war drew together to a close. April 3d Petersburg 
was evacuated, and on April 9th Lee, unable to 
escape from the tightening lines of the Union forces, 
saw that he could not save Richmond, and signed 
terms of capitulation. Armstrong witnessed the 
surrender and thus describes it : 

"Appomattox Court House, Virginia, 

"April 9, 1863. 

"God is great! To-day, by His help, the great 

Confederate General and his army have surrendered 

unconditionally. I have yust been viewing from a 



Life in the Army. J 862- J 865 121 

near eminence the captive host, the artillery and 
wagon trains. 

"Yesterday General Custer took all the_^upj>lies sent 
from Lynchburg to Lee's army; our ar^y"^ closed in 
around the rebels, and this morning they found them- 
selves surrounded and without provisions. Early we 
advanced and our skirmish lines met those of the 
enemy. Mine drove not only the rebel skirmishers, 
but also their line of battle. We expected a fight — 
I never felt more like it. I mounted my noble stallion 
and was ready to lead on at the word. A few bullets 
whistled around, a few shells passed over — the rebs 
gave way — all was quiet, there was a rumor of sur- 
render; we waited; other rumors came, and finally it 
was certain that the cruel war was over. The first 
inkling I had of it was the continuous cheering of troops 
on our right. Soon staff officers galloped up with the 
news that Lee was making terms of surrender; the 
firing ceased. It was impossible to realize that the 
terrible army of Lee was in existence no longer ! The 
truth was stunning. As for myself, I felt a sadness, a 
feeling that the colored soldiers had not done enough, 
been sufficiently proved. We just missed a splendid 
chance of taking a rebel battery an hour before Sheldon's 
cavalry came tumbling back — the rebs were driving 
them, and we were put in to arrest their advance, which 
we easily did, for they no sooner saw us than they 
halted and retired before our skirmishers. This delay 
lost us our chance." 

Although, he now received a brevet title of 
brigadier-general of volunteers, and commanded 
brigades for some months to come, he never while 
in the army wore his brigadier's stars, using the 



122 Samwel Chapman Afmstrongf 

familiar colonel's eagles. When a friend questioned 
him about this habit, he laughed and said: "Oh, I 
guess I'll stick to the old birds." 

In spite of the fact that the Civil War was over, 
the colored troops were not at once disbanded. 
Mexico had also been in the throes of civil war, 
and the insuigents were plotting for the overthrow 
of the Emperor Maximilian. To lend friendly 
support to the republican insurgents and to secure 
our own boundary lines during the confusion it was 
decided to send a small force to the Mexican border. 
Of this force Armstrong's regiment, the Eighth 
United States Colored Troops, was a part, and May 
30, 1865, he embarked for Texas, writing a month 
later to his mother as follows: 

"We had a most delightful run from the fort to 
Mobile Harbor. Most of the way the sea was perfectly 
smooth, and I was very little seasick. We took the 
'outside passage'; passed 'Memory Rock,' the Bahama 
Islands, Key West and the 'Dry Tortugas.' 

"You can hardly imagine how glorious it was to sit 
on one of the huge paddle-boxes at sunset — seeing the 
sun go down, the western sky draped in the most 
gorgeous cloud - tapestry — the ship gliding swiftly 
through a glassy sea — a brass band discoursing rich 
music, and a scene of life and pleasure on board. The 
nights were warm and many of us slept on deck, subject, 
however, to the inconvenience of being roused very 
early when the ship was washed down. 

"It is no easy matter to regulate a thousand men 
crowded on shipboard, unused to the sea, sick or uneasy 
or irritated with ennui. Still, our voyage passed off 



Life in the Army* J862-J865 123 

very well — the men were kept clean and were fed. I 
used to have them stripped, 100 at a time, put in the 
forward part of the ship and then had the hose play on 
them." 

As they approached the mouth of the Rio Grande 
River, in order to land at Brazos Santiago, the first 
stopping-place, a shipwreck occurred in which his 
whole expedition nearly came to a disastrous end. 

On attempting to land, they found the sea 
running very high near the river's mouth. Arm- 
strong left the ship and went ashore to select a 
camp-ground and assist from the shore side in 
landing his men. 

"I then took my position on a pile of lumber to watch 
my regiment come ashore, it having been transferred 
to a large schooner in order to get over the bar, which 
is very shallow and across which the surf breaks. 
Indeed, this is an ugly coast and is strewn with wrecks. 
There is a sand bar and a line of breakers for hundreds 
of miles along this shore. 

"The surf was running high, and lying well over, 
under a stiff breeze, the vessel stood in for the bar. I 
had heard it stated that she drew too much water to 
pass the bar, and knew that the best pilot in port 
refused to bring her in. The schooner came tearing in, 
but all at once she stopped, her sails shivered, and 
there she lay among the breakers with my regiment on 
board and darkness just coming on. 

"I never in my life was more distressed or helpless. 
Got a boat's crew to pull me out toward the wreck, but 
it was impossible to reach her. She was fairly crowded 
with men and I expected to lose half at least of them. 



124 Samuel Chapman Armstrong 

She drifted and thumped along, however, toward the 
remains of an old steamer, the Nassau, formerly 
wrecked in Banks's expedition, and whose engine was 
partly out of water. The greatest danger was that 
the schooner would drift against this wreck and break 
to pieces. This was at eleven o'clock at night." 

He found some Italian boatmen who undertook 
to unload the steamer, but looking about for a 
quicker means of saving his men he found a large 
metallic life-boat, perfectly sotmd, which had drifted 
ashore. This he manned with his own officers and 
men, and in spite of a recently broken arm took 
the steering-oar himself and put out to the schooner. 

"It was most exciting and difficult, as my right arm 
is nearly useless for hard work. The rollers would 
come in and pick up my boat and carry it like a shot 
for a few rods, and as it was so short and light it was 
difficult to keep it in the right position. I wonder I did 
not break my arm or get stunned or swamped, for the 
oar would sometimes be snapped out of my hand, and 
the boat would slew around and I could barely fix her 
for the next wave. The surf kept increasing, and my 
little boat would sometimes stand uj), almost, or be 
lost in spray. But nothing serious happened till the 
schooner broke away and drifted up so close that the 
men jumped off. 

"The discipline of the men never broke, but every 
man stood at his post till called for. Those on shore 
were organized into parties for seizing the boats as the 
waves swept them in, generally half full of water; 
helped the men out, bailed out the boats and started 
us oflE again for the ship. Others were boiling coffee 



Life in the Atmy. J862-J865 125 

for the wet and drenched troops ; the Chaplain dealt out 
whisky. All those working were stripped to the waist 
and barefoot. Officers and men pulled oars side by- 
side It was exciting. 

"At last, after I had got about 400 men off in boats, 
the schooner drifted close in and the troops jumped 
off, throwing their knapsacks overboard and jumping 
after them. I only lost about ten guns and twenty 
knapsacks, and no lives." 

Brazos Santiago is a long, low island, entirely 
destitute of verdure and below the level of the 
highest winter tides. 

"There is no wood to be had, no water in the region. 
We use condensed water often while it is warm, or the 
water of the Rio Grande, which is nine miles off and is 
brought here in schooners. It is very nasty just now, 
as the river is swollen. 

"At one time there were 10,000 troops here three days, 
and 2,000 gallons of water per day supplied. Some of 
my regiment walked to the Rio Grande, loaded with 
canteens and dragging a barrel for water. There was 
much suffering. 

"We get no fresh vegetables or vegetables of any 
kind and seldom secure fresh meat. Our men are 
worked to death unloading vessels, and we are all 
disgusted and greatly provoked and are fast getting 
demoralized. We seldom receive letters or newspapers 
— nothing ever happens. 

"We expect to move soon up the Rio Grande, but 
here there are no mosquitoes or sand-flies. Further up 
there are swarms of flies and mosquitoes and 'swifts' 
and snakes. The 'prickly pear' covers the whole 
country. The prospect is dismal, withering, though, 



126 Samttel Chapman Armstfong; 

speaking for myself, I am not feeling very uneasy or 
demoralized." 

By August the regiment, with one other, was 
encamped at Ringgold Barracks, where it remained 
till early in October, This was a dull but healthful 
spot, and as the ofScers became acquainted with the 
people they varied the monotony of camp life by 
giving balls and dinners to their friends. One of 
the latter occasions he described to his sister: 

"To-day I gave a dinner to the commander of the 
Liberal forces in the north of Mexico and his staff. 
I had invited him to come and bring a few friends, 
expecting about five in all. A small army came. A 
great cloud of dust announced their coming and made 
us tremble. We were amazed, confounded, dumb ! 
Were we to feed a regiment ? Your brother Samuel 
was in a fix about that time. I hadn't invited the 
whole army, yet it came. The General dismounted. 
We rushed (literally) into each other's arms, the Mexican 
expression of cordiality. I hugged half a score of these 
Indians. My own field and staff officers did the same. 
Oh, what a funny scene ! None of them could talk 
English; we couldn't talk Spanish. A weasel-faced 
quack doctor (surgeon-general of the army) acted as 
interpreter. Polite inquiries were exchanged and diplo- 
matic observations (and lies) passed and repassed. 
My line tents (ten large wall tents) were nearly filled 
and I had in my tent the only interpreter. There was 
lots of glorious good feeling and lots of hugging and 
clinking of glasses, and bows and grimaces, and then 
more hugging and lively conversation on a very small 
stock of words, not over a dozen (in Spanish). But 



Life in the Army. tZ62-iS65 127 

the dinner ! Ghosts of all housekeepers, embodied and 
disembodied ! The day of miracles being past and a 
detts ex machina coming down on only a few favored 
stages, we had to resort to substantial and ordinary 
means. 

"We dined ten at a time. I took the principal 
men to the first table, which was set under a canvas 
covering, and which was decorated with a common reed 
much resembling sorghum; sorghum on the floor, over- 
head, and on every side. 

"Think of a May party or a Fourth-of-July picnic 
with sorghum boughs and wreaths ! We had, after 
all, a 'right smart' dinner, and of course the proper 
toasts were proposed and responded to, all of which 
was exceedingly novel and rich. I spoke on behalf 
of the American people; made touching allusions 
to the national sympathy, kicked old 'Max' out of 
the halls of the Montezumas, and made my chief 
guest the hero and martyr of Mexican liberty, all of 
which was put into Spanish and swallowed (?). 
Some attended dress parade. Others sat down at 
the table, and then the regimental band performed. 
Everybody grinned and said, ' Muchisima gusta,' which 
means 'infinite pleasure.' 

" It being nearly dark, our guests took their departure 
amid the most overwhelming assurances of mutual 
satisfaction and violent caressing. I hugged General 
EvSpinoza five times before he departed, and embraced 
more than I have any recollection of. 

"This hugging is delightful. I wish it were gener- 
ally introduced. Confound the formality of our society ! 
Let society learn the etiquette of the heart on the 
banks of the Rio Grande — dethrone the head that 
now rules ! And so they departed amid the ' adios ' of 
everybody and 'Hail, Columbia' from the band." 



128 Samtjel Chapman Afmstrong 

From the same place he wrote : 

"Camp Eighth United States Colored Troops. 
"Ringgold Barracks, Texas, 

"August 23, 1865. 
"I find that I am not polite and accomplished. I 
aim rather to be just and manly, and patiently seek 
to realize the higher, more heroic qualities. These are 
a guarantee of success, not what is commonly called so, 
but of that fulness and completeness in character that 
gives an inner and calm and rich assurance that one is 
a true man and makes one satisfied no matter how 
circumstances may change. This inner strength is 
the thing, and it is completed, perfected and made 
glorious by religion. Thus one, though poor and 
unnoticed, may be greater, grander and far more 
beautiful than anything that is made of the costliest 
stone. Men are as a rule heathens; we adore as many 
absurdities as the Hindoos; society impels us to a false 
manhood, as false as it can be. Here it is easier to be 
manly, to cultivate noble aspirations than in the most 
pious New England village. A greasy, dirty Mexican, 
fighting for the liberty of his country, inspires me more 
than the whole faculty of Andover Theological Seminary 
would. Don't let us pity the Zulus and the Eskimo 
too much. We are almost as blind as they — they by 
darkness, we by too much light. Soldiering has some- 
times set me to thinking. My few opportunities in the 
army have been of far more use to me than the abundant 
measure I had before. When a meeting-house burns 
up I care very little; under the trees it is better — under 
the evening sky as the sun goes down in glory (as we 
worship) is the grandest time and place for it. I am 
terribly down on two sermons every Sunday. The 
drawing-out process is the best and truest. Set the 



Life in the Atmy* 1862-1865 129 

people to work and the ministers to chewing tobacco if 
necessary to make them Hke other men, not still and 
mannerish, but open, free, hearty and happy. A good 
hearty, healthy laugh is as bad for the devil as some of 
the long nasal prayers I have heard — yes, worse. There 
is religion in music, in the opera. Tell me anjrthing 
more sacred than the prayer in 'Freischutz' (I spell it 
wrong)- — * Benedictus, ' it is called. Is there anything 
purer than the tender, passionate strains of ' Norma ' ? 
Ministers say the opera is bad; I find religion there. 
They say to walk or ride out on Sunday is wicked. 
My bethel is by the seashore ; there the natural language 
of my heart is prayer. So of the motmtains. 

"Good people try to do too much to dodge the devil 
and to build up a wall to keep him out. What does he 
do? He helps build the wall. Meet him squarely; 
fight the inner battle of self, and outward forms — 
moralities— will take care of themselves. Allow young 
people to doubt — doubt anything and ever5rthing — 
don't crush doubt, because you crush conviction too. 
The Hawaiian missionaries have made terrible mistakes 
in this way." 

Early in October he was ordered to Brownsville, 
Texas, and after a few weeks' stay there received 
his discharge. 

Many were the plans for future work which filled 
his mind during these his last days in the army. 
A lieutenant-colonelcy in the First United States 
Colored Cavalry was offered him, but he did not 
care for that kind of work. His brothers suggested 
business openings, and he himself had some thoughts 
of entering the Freedmen's Bureau, then just 



130 Samwel Chapman Armsttong 

becoming prominent in work for the Negro. The 
world must have spread a very agreeable prospect 
to the yoimg soldier, well born, well educated and 
full of physical vigor; peace brought with it new 
prosperity, and everywhere he saw room for men of 
enterprise. To his mother he wrote : 

"I have asked Baxter to let me know what openings 
there are in California, either of lucrative business or of 
other kind. I may go to New York City if Will can get 
me fixed off there. I expect to begin at the bottom of 
the ladder and work along. Don't expect to study a 
profession. I think I shall get into the right place 
by and by." 

The third anniversary of his enlistment, a few 
weeks before he was discharged, brought with it a 
new conception of what the future might hold in 
store for him. 

"To-day, September ist, has been quiet and serene. 
A good deal of business, but steady and easy. But one 
eventful thing has occurred. My lieutenant-colonel, 
major and myself were in conversation together in my 
tent. The subject of citizenship was mentioned, and 
one remarked that by act of Congress to serve in the 
army three years was to become an American citizen. 
I at once remembered that yesterday I had been just 
three years in the United States service, and this 
morning for the first time walked out into the sunlight 
and air a citizen of the Grand Republic. The thought 
was tremendous ! To be forever imder the shelter of 
the broad pinions of the American eagle ! To be one 
of the mighty brood of that glorious bird; to sing 



Life in the Atmy. J 862- J 865 131 

'My Country, 'Tis of Thee'; to call 'the flag of my 
country' that glorious banner that has for four years 
been wreathed in smoke and torn and stained in count- 
less battles, and now finally and forever triumphant — 
this is a thought too immense to be grappled at once, 
but enough to excite the profotmdest emotions. We 
all rose to our feet and I embraced each of the two who 
were with me, and we all thought it was very jolly. 
I have thrown off the ' kapa'* mantle and assumed the 
toga of the Republic. 

"There may be a place for me in the struggle for 
right and wrong in this country." 

At this critical time in his career his thoughts 
turned more and more from making m.oney in some 
well-chosen business enterprise toward the service 
of his tellow men. He wrote : 

"I have not given myself to arms, although I have 
been one of the most forttmate of soldiers. I have 
chosen no profession, nor do I at present think I 
shall study one. 

'°My capabilities are of an executive nature, and I 
shall seek some chance of usefulness where I can use 
my talents to the most advantage and for the cause 
of humanity. 

"My purpose is to serve the Great Master in some 
way as well as I can ; to be of use to my fellow men ; to 
give the life so marvellously spared and wonderfully 
blessed to the source of all mercy and blessing. I 
shall probably not enter the ministry; am not made 
for a preacher. I should rather minister than be a 
minister." 

* Cloth made by native Hawaiians. 



132 Samuel Chapman Armstfong; 

Certainly he regarded the iincertainties of the 
future with no dread. 

"There is something in this standing face to face with 
destiny, looking into its darkness, that is inspiring; 
it appeals to manhood; it is thrilling, like going into 
action." 




O ■•" 

H ha 



CHAPTER V 

The Freedmen's Bureau. 1866-1872 

After his discharge, Armstrong went to New 
York, where he spent several weeks with his brother. 
Toward the close of winter he made his way to 
Washington with some thought of applying for a 
government position, but what he saw of politi- 
cal office-seeking in the President's waiting-room 
so disgusted him that he gave up this idea, and 
remembering his former plan of work for the Negro 
in the South, applied to the Bureau of Refugees, 
Freedmen and Abandoned Lands for a position. 

The Freedmen's Bureau had come into being in 
response to the crying needs of the Negroes left help- 
lessly adrift during the closing months of the war 
when the Emancipation Proclamation had loosened 
home ties and there appeared neither refuge for 
the suffering women, children and infirm nor occu- 
pation for the able-bodied. It was made a depart- 
ment of Government by act of Congress, 1865, 
and put under the leadership of General O. O. 
Howard, who, as Commissioner, alone directed 
its operations and selected the men that were to 
do its work. 

This work General Howard describes as follows: 
133 



134 Samuel Chapman Armstrong 

"The first consideration was how to do the work 
before us. The plantations were all left imcultivated ; 
some were abandoned, all had lost their slaves. People 
said, 'We can't raise cotton with only free labor.' 
Our task was to show them they could. I started some 
joint stock companies from the North. Northern 
capital undertook the work. The result was, more 
cotton was raised the first year after the war than had 
been raised in any one year before. Other years were 
not as successful, but the point was proved and an 
impulse given to free labor. 

"Another work we had to do was to settle the rela- 
tions between the former master and ex-slave. Troubles 
were continually arising. To settle these we estab- 
lished courts made up of one agent of the Freedmen's 
Bureau, one man selected by the whites and one by the 
Negroes. These courts settled all such difficulties till 
finally the courts themselves were transferred to the 
State and local authorities upon condition of the recep- 
tion of Negro testimony. 

"Then there were the land troubles. When the 
owners abandoned their plantations the colored people 
settled on them — lived in their houses and used the 
land. 

"Most of the land was given back to the owners 
by the Government, under our direction and advice. 
It was often hard on the colored people. I was sorry 
for them and would have liked sometimes to do differ- 
ently. Yet I believe it was on the whole better for them. 
It put them at the bottom of the ladder. 

"Then we had a hospital department. That was 
for the old and decrepit men and women and the sick 
and disabled who could not take care of themselves. 
We had also a department to establish asylums for the 
little children whose fathers had been killed in the 



The Freedmen's Butcau* J 866- 1 872 135 

war or who had strayed from their homes and been 
lost, as many had. 

"But the main point we had to attend to was the 
care of the schools." * 

The bureau, with its three departments, eco- 
nomic, charitable and educational, thus held com- 
plete control over the doings and prospects of the 
ex-slave. It was a government within a govern- 
ment, held closely together by an elaborate system 
of reports from subordinate to superior and directly 
responsible to its own Commissioner only. 

Many besides Samuel Armstrong were looking 
to the Freedmen's Bureau for the solution of the 
problems that were vexing the nation. What 
should be done with the Negro? How secure to 
him his new political rights? How befriend with- 
out pauperizing him? How fit him to care for 
himself ? 

People everywhere in the North were asking 
these questions — people who were not involved 
in the vortex of political jobbery that surrounded 
Washington, who had borne the strain of the war 
for conscience's sake and who were now prepared to 
shoulder the responsibilities that followed it; and 
they waited for the Freedmen's Bureau to present 
effective answers to these questions — answers that 
should settle the status of the Negro in the South 
in a permanent and satisfying way. This was not 

* Address delivered by General Howard at Hampton Insti- 
tute, 1889. 



136 Samuel Chapman Atmsttong 

the only way in which it was proposed to meet the 
needs of the Negro ; deportation to Africa, segrega- 
tion of the Negroes in one or two States and in in- 
dustrial communities managed by the Government 
were suggested, but the people in general looked to 
the Freedmen's Bureau to show the way out. 

While this organization combined such differing 
forms of activity, the workers in it themselves pre- 
sented also varied aspects of character and fitness. 
Some men and women more zealous than well in- 
formed sought in it an outlet to their charitable 
desires; others, less zealous, found lucrative posi- 
tions at the expense of their charges ; however, many 
intelligent and public-spirited persons were installed 
under its direction. 

General Howard's policy was to place officers of 
the regular army at the most responsible points, 
while civilians were usually employed as agents at 
less important centers ; and when Samuel Armstrong 
applied, with a letter from his late chief of staff 
and his brilliant record as an officer of colored 
troops, he was received favorably. 

Concerning the interview General Howard writes : 

"Though already a general, General Armstrong 
seemed to me very young. His quick motions and 
nervous energy were apparent then. He spoke rapidly 
and wanted matters decided if possible on the spot. 
I was then very favorably impressed with his knowledge 
and sentiment toward the freedmen, and thought he 
would make a capital sub-commissioner." 



The Freedmen's Butea,u» J 866- J 872 137 

There was no vacancy in the department, however, 
and Armstrong left the office, visited friends and 
decided to return to New York. But before leaving 
Washington he again called, satchel in hand, at the 
office of the Freedmen's Bureau to see if an opening 
had presented itself since his former visit. As he 
entered the office one of the aides looked up and 
said: "We've a great lot of contrabands down on 
the Virginia Peninsula and can't manage them; no 
one has had success in keeping them straight. 
General Howard thinks you might try it." Another 
conversation with that officer resulted in Armstrong's 
receiving a double appointment — as agent under the 
Freedmen's Bureau, having control over ten counties, 
the fifth sub-district of Virginia, and also as superin- 
tendent of schools, or Bureau Superintendent, over 
a large, loosely defined area. 

As agent he was one of eight men who controlled 
the fortunes of the Negroes and to a certain extent 
of the whites throughout the State of Virginia, 
each of the eight holding a district of from six to 
twelve counties and reporting to Colonel Orlando 
Brown, at Richmond, who held the office of Assistant 
Commissioner, As Bureau Superintendent, Arm- 
strong was one of several men holding that office 
in the State, but he alone usually reported directly 
to General Howard on all matters connected with 
the education of the freedmen. General Howard 
urged that he now officially use the title of General, 
thinking that it would help him to secure the imme- 



138 Samttel Chapman Armsttong 

diate respect of his subordinates, many of whom were 
army officers, when he, a yoiing man of twenty- 
seven, appeared among them as their superior. 

About March 15, 1866, Armstrong arrived at Fort 
Monroe and rode a few miles to his post at the village 
of Hampton. Hampton is beautifully situated near 
the mouth of a short tidal river and was once one 
of the finest towns in the South, but several years 
before Armstrong's arrival had been burned to the 
ground, and only massive chimneys, with gaping 
fireplaces, remained to mark the site of former 
pleasant homes. The contrabands, like weeds 
springing up on burned ground, had swarmed over 
the place, building huts or pitching tents against 
the old chimneys. Within a radius of three miles 
from his office lived 7,000 Negroes, camping in this 
squalid fashion, waiting for they knew not what. 
The immediately surrounding country imder his 
control was a vast stretch of low, often marshy, 
partially wooded land, dotted with hospital barracks 
and log cabins, intersected by the muddy roads of 
Virginia, and bounded on the east and north by the 
waters of the Chesapeake Bay and the ocean. 

Full of enthusiasm for his work and full of the 
courage of youth, Armstrong settled himself in his 
new home. He made his headquarters, with his staff 
of assistants, at an old mansion near the residence 
of the teachers employed by the American Mis- 
sionary Association, and appeared as a conspicuous 
figure among the isolated little group of Northerners 



The Ffecdmen's Buteati* iZ66-iZ72 139 

working under difficult conditions, making many 
mistakes, yet furthering as best they could what 
they conceived to be the highest interests of the 
community. 

His associates trusted from the first that his 
strong, straightforward methods would untangle 
the network of political and social difficulties in 
which they had been working. With a happy 
temperament, an easy control of subordinates and 
a natural gift for dealing with the Negroes, he 
inspired general confidence and soon brought about 
order throughout his district. 

He wrote to his mother as follows : 

"Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and 
Abandoned Lands, 
"Headquarters Superintendent Ninth District, Virginia. 
"Fort Monroe, Virginia, June 2, 1866. 

"Dear Mother: I have been on duty in the bureau 
three months, and a singular experience it has been. 
Providence seemed to put me in just the place I wanted. 

"The work is very difficult; there are here, congre- 
gated in little villages, some 5,000 colored people, 
crowded, squalid, poor, and idle. It is my work to 
scatter and renovate them; one in which much is ex- 
pected, but very limited means are given. I think 
I have secured the confidence of the people as well as 
of my superiors, at least so far that I am the only 
civilian in the whole bureau occupying a position of 
superintendent, which is a special favor from General 
Howard. All the rest are discharged. How long this 
work will last I do not know — it mar soon die out, or 
I may be discharged, or it may lead me to some other 



I40 Samttel Chapman Armsttong 

work. I am uncertain of the future, but still am confi- 
dent that all will be well. 

"I am living in the so-called 'Massenburg house/ 
once one of the stateliest of the beautiful village of 
Hampton, now shorn of its glory — its greenhouse and 
garden destroyed and its rooms turned into offices and 
quarters. In the rear of the house is the bureau jail, 
where I summarily stow away all sorts of people when 
they are unruly — I have murderers, thieves, liars, and 
all sorts of disorderly characters — a squad of soldiers 
under my orders, who make quick work with any 
troublesome people. I am quite independent and like 
the position and the work. 

"I have about a dozen officers under me, though I 
am a civilian, and a glorious field of labor. I have 
some thirty-four lady teachers from the North. Some 
splendid people are helping me. 

"This place is historic. A little above here is 
Jamestown, in my district, where the first settlers came, 
and the ruins of their church are standing. In my field 
were fought many hard battles, and some of my own. 

"This Hampton has been the city of refuge of the 
Negroes throughout the war — here they came from all 
Virginia to seek freedom, food and a home; hither 
caravans daily poured in for months with young, old 
and helpless, and here they built their little cabins and 
i did what they could. 

"Here were raised several colored regiments, which 
took the men and left the women helpless — and oh, 
the misery there has been — it can never be told ! But 
the worst is over. The men came not back, since 
most were killed, disabled or died, and here are their 
families in my charge; and they are a great care; we 
issue 18,000 rations a day to those who would die of 



The Freedmen's Bofeao. J 866- J 872 141 

starvation were it not for this, and keep their children 
at school, and get them work and prevent injustice. 
Take us away and the Negroes might as well all be 
hanged at once. 

"There is not much peace; work comes on all days of 
the week, Sundays not excepted, I like it — there is a 
large field and lots to do. I am compelled to do some 
speech-making — have held forth at divers times and 
places to the darkies. Have to deah too, with some 
cute, oily white men, smart as steel and smooth as 
sycophants; it reminds me of the old times when I was 
editor of the Hae Hawaii. 

"I am going around to the county court-houses 
where the Circuit Court holds session (next week) and 
harangue the mobs. 

"To-day is Sunday — went to meeting, sang in choir; 
dine with Mrs. D . 

"Yesterday I received a courteous note from a highly 

accomplished and wealthy lady of New York, Miss W , 

asking for two photographs of mine; one for Coimt de 
Gasparin and one for Laboulaye of France, as one who 
has drilled the colored troops; she is making a collec- 
tion of United States officers for these gentlemen. 

"You have no idea of what splendid oysters we have 
here — ^the best in the world — cheap as dirt — and lots 
of fish in summer; fine roads and rides. 

"I will tell you my counties, so you can see my 
domain on the map. They are these: Matthews, 
Gloucester, York, Warwick, Elizabeth City, Charles 
City, James City, New Kent, and King William counties. 

"General Howard told me it was the hardest position 
to fill he had: there is such ill feeling between whites 
and blacks, so many paupers, so much idleness, and 
such an enormous population. 



142 Samuel Chapman Armstrong 

"Shine, ye lucky stars! 

"There is a beautiful sheet of water before the vil- 
lage — ^the scene of the fight between the Merrimac 
and the Monitor; the naval rendezvous of the war 
and twice the base of operations of the Army of the 
Potomac. 

"The work is splendid, and if God leads me as He has 
done, I shall have nothing to fear — all will be well. 
"I am known as General Armstrong by everybody." 

He wrote later in an official report concerning 
his work at Hampton : 

"Colored squatters by thousands and General Lee's 
disbanded soldiers returning to their families came 
together in my district on hundreds of 'abandoned' 
farms which the Government had seized and allowed 
the freedmen to occupA'. There was irritation, but both 
classes were ready to do the fair thing. It was about a 
two years' task to settle matters by making terms 
with the landowners, who employed many laborers 
on their restored homes. Swarms went back to the 
'old plantation' on passes, with thirty days' rations. 

"Hardest of all was to settle the ration question; 
about 2,000 having been fed for years were demoralized 
and seemed hopeless. Notice was given that in three 
months, on October i, 1866, all rations would be stopped 
except to those in hospital, for whom full provision was 
made. Trouble was expected, but there was not a 
ripple of it or a complaint that day. Their resource 
was surprising. The Negro in a tight place is a genius. 

"In general," said he, "the whites were well disposed, 
but inactive in suppressing any misconduct of the 



The Ffeedmen's Bwteaa. 1 866- J 872 143 

lower class. Friendliness between the races was 
general, broken only by political excitement, and was 
due, I think, to the fact that they had been brought 
up together, often in the most intimate way, from 
childhood; a surprise to me, for on missionary ground 
parents — with the spirit of martyrs — take every pains 
to prevent contact of their children with the natives 
around them. 

"Martial law prevailed; there were no civil courts, 
and for many months the bureau officer in each county 
acted on all kinds of cases, gaining generally the confi- 
dence of both races. When martial law was over and 
the rest were everywhere discontinued, the military 
court at Hampton was kept up by common consent for 
about six months. 

"Scattered families were reunited. From even 
Louisiana — for the whole South was mapped out, each 
county officered and as a rule wisely administered — 
would come inquiries about the relatives and friends of 
one who had been sold to traders years before, and great 
justice and humanity were done in bringing together 
broken households." 

The Freedmen's Bureau was not the only agency 
at work for the relief of the freedmen. Fourteen 
different societies, distinct in operation though alike 
in aim, had their agents at work in the South, 
supplemented further by freedmen's departments 
in the northern churches and private charity 
acting through various channels. 

Wherever the Negroes were found there were 
gathered together missionaries, lady teachers, 
soldiers, and cooperating with all, supplementing 



144 Samwel Chapman At-mstrong 

their work and yet in authority over them all, 
the Freedmen's Bureau. 

There was much room for individual action among 
the agents of the bureau. It was General Howard's 
policy to set forth clearly to his subordinates, by 
means of frequent circular letters, the general 
policy to be pursued, and then to leave to their 
discretion the execution of details. Thus the bureau 
offered much scope to a man of executive powers, 
while demanding the exercise of constant tact and 
originality. 

There was opportimity for pleasure as well as 
routine work in this life, and that of a sort that 
suited Armstrong's tastes exactly. He owned a 
boat and often made tours of several days, accom- 
panied only by a Negro boy, perhaps camping at 
night and living on salt pork and hard tack.* These 
excursions were often of a business nature, for the 
purpose of inspecting schools and the work of sub- 



*Froin one of these tours he wrote home the following reflec- 
tions on the f)olitical situation: 

"Let me animadvert briefly on the political situation. Repub- 
licans are increasing since the election of Grant, and several 
southern gentlemen about here are much more radical than I. 
'When the devil was sick the devil a monk would be; when 
the devil was well the devil a monk was he.' Scores are get- 
ting down off the fence and are rushing wildly to the Republi- 
can lines and already begin to talk of what they have suffered 
for their principles. I was buttonholed this evening by a 
devoted radical lately converted, who has confidential talks 
with darkies 'behind houses and around comers,' and was 
bored with an address upon 'the party,' its principles and its 
meanest men, swallowed without a gulp — without a wink. 
There are good, noble dogs and ' yaller ' mean dogs. So there 
are yellow dogs, humanely speaking, who roll over on their 
backs figuratively and wag their tails at the rulers of the hotir." 



The Ffcedmen's Bute&u. J866-J872 145 

ordinates. He took other tours on horseback, and 
while riding through the Virginia pine woods often 
caught gHmpses of Negro Hfe and character, and 
received impressions of the value of the obscure 
work of faithful missionary teachers, who were 
sources of true light to their flocks in the pine woods, 
that proved of inestimable value to him in later life. 
He had not been long at Hampton when a plan 
which promised some relief for the immediate needs 
of the freedmen suggested itself, and to many- 
ladies in the neighborhood of Boston he sent the 
following circular letter, which contains his first 
mention of plans for industrial education: 

"Bureau Refugees, Freedmen and 
Abandoned Lands, 
"Fort Monroe, April 16, 1866. 

"My Dear Madam: I beg leave to make a few state- 
ments to you regarding the condition of the colored 
people in this place, in the hope that through your 
influence their destitution and suffering may be in some 
way relieved. 

"There are in this vicinity about 1,700 infirm or 
helpless men, women and children drawing rations 
from Government, most of whom, should this aid be 
withdrawn, would suffer extremely. 

"Yet nearly one-half of these are in this dependent 
condition solely because there is nothing for them to 
do and they cannot go where there is work. Most are 
women who have from one to five children apiece. 
They are generally able-bodied, apt to learn and anxious 
to get employment. 

"I have thought that many northern families might 



146 Samuel Chapman Armstfong 

be willing to take one of these women with one or two 
children who are old enough not to be a great care to 
the mother and are able to do something for them- 
selves; especially in the country, the children might 
make themselves very useful; they could be bound out 
for a term of years and thus make a return for the 
labor and expense of their bringing up. Mothers will 
not leave their children, and in fact, from local as 
well as family ties, it is very difficult to persuade 
these women to go North or elsewhere. Yet they seem 
anxious to work, and I am confident that many valuable 
servants can be obtained here. . . . Their future 
is dark, for the bureau cannot last long, and then they 
must choose between starvation and crime. 

"Just now hundreds of able-bodied men are thrown 
out of employment by the oyster law lately passed by 
the Legislature. It requires taxes and bonds, which 
not one oysterman in a hundred can comply with, and 
the penalties of violation are very severe — they tax 
them $6.20 per annum per man, who has also to give 
a bond of $500. ... I should have mentioned that 
few trained cooks or house-servants can be got — that 
class fled with their owners, who abandoned their silver 
but kept their domestics. Those for whom I plead are 
mostly field hands, with but a smattering of culinary 
training. 

"I wish some society at the North would undertake 
to find places for some of them, also for their children, 
and then communicate with me. 

"Many might prefer to employ men and boys. The 
Negro is a hostler constitutionally; he rides and drives 
by instinct. A large number of such could be furnished. 

"The daytime of our labor for the freed people is 
short. The North has not as yet done its full duty 



The Freedmen's Bwreatt. J 866- 1 872 147 

in this matter. I will gladly cooperate with any who 
are disposed to take hold of this, and in some way and 
to some extent we can, if we will, rescue many from ills 
that would surely come to them. 

"There is another and most important field for 
philanthropic effort. It is the building up of industrial 
schools. In order to do this, a teacher should be sent 
whose annual support comes to about $300. She should 
be supplied with suitable goods to be made up into 
clothing by the colored girls and women. These for 
their work receive an allowance of clothes — the balance 
is given to the destitute, or sold at a low rate to those 
able to pay. In this way a useful art is taught (cutting 
and making clothing), well-earned clothing is received, 
the destitute are provided for and are allowed to buy 
cheap and excellent garments. 

"I consider this work of great importance, but it is 
almost neglected. Can you not persuade friends to 
send through the American Missionary Society of 
New York two or three teachers? This society has 
quarters and other comforts already provided, and 
thus there is an economy in sending through it." * 

The permanent and only solution of the difficul- 
ties that surrounded the ex-slaves became daily 
clearer to him. In an official report, dated June 
30, 1866, speaking of the indignation felt by the 
Negroes at being ejected from the lands they had 
squatted upon, which were restoredf to their former 
owners, he writes: 



'The freedmen hardly yet comprehend the fact of 

A.S a result of this ] 
;ed in families near 1 

fBy act of Congress. 



*As a result of this letter about 1,000 Negroes were actually 
placed in families near Cambridge and Boston. 



148 Samuel Chapman Armstrong 

the restoration of lands, and cry out against the injustice 
of it. They will not as a general rule be permitted 
to remain, owing largely to their failure to pay rent. 
, . Their inability or refusal to pay is due to 
improvidence, or carelessness, or poverty, or to their not 
comprehending the fact of restoration. Their minds 
are in much confusion, and many have been honest in 
refusing to pay. Many who do not would pay rent if 
they believed it right to do so. . . . Freedmen as a 
class are destitute of ambition; their complacency in 
poverty and filth is a curse; discontent would lead to 
determined effort and a better life. Many cling to 
Hampton and stick to Virginia apparently to lay their 
bones there when they have no more use for them. 
'Born and bred here, bound to die here,' is often their 
supremely stupid and pitiable answer when asked to 
go elsewhere. Honest efforts on their behalf they 
interpret into designs to reenslave them. No slave- 
catcher was ever looked upon with more horror than the 
clerk who recently sought orphans for the farm-school 
at Washington. . . . These wild notions are the 
result of ignorance, to which is mainly due the troubles 
of the race. 

"The education of the freedmen is the great work of 
the day; it is their only hope, the only power that can 
lift them up as a people, and I think every encourage- 
ment should be given to schools established for their 
benefit." 

His thoughts were the more readily directed 
toward education for the freedmen because his 
especial work, that to which General Howard had 
particularly assigned him, was the study of exist- 
ing the limited educational opportunities and 



The Fteedmen's Bwfea«. 1 866- J 872 149 

observing and reporting concerning the need for 
others.* 

There were already many thriving little schools 
in his district. Here and there among the pine 
woods or sandy reaches stood log cabins, whither 
night after night patient Aunt Dinahs and Uncle 
Toms, after laboring all day long, went to pore over 
spelling book and arithmetic; or perhaps some 
more pretentious building supported by the Ameri- 
can Missionary Association, where bright little 
colored children took their first steps in learning. 

The zeal of the ex-slaves for learning was one of 
the phenomena of the decade following the war, 
and was one of the tendencies least understood by 
their northern friends. It was thought to indicate a 
well-considered wish on their part to supply their 
own mental deficiencies, while in reality it in general 
merely indicated the imitative faculty which led 
them to do those things which they had seen done 

*He was required by his position as Superintendent of Schools 
to state the location of all those within his district, the names 
of teachers employed in them, the number of pupils in each, 
the name of the owner of the school-building, and of the educa- 
tional society by which it was supported. He was further 
required to make original investigations tending to the estab- 
lishment of schools under the direct auspices of the Freedmen's 
Bureau, noting property especially adapted to school use in 
present or future (in his reports on this matter he saw to it 
that the Wood farm, where the Hampton Institute was 
afterward situated, always went to Washington with the endorse- 
ment, "Advisable to hold"), and to report what local sentiment 
existed for or against the education of the freedmen. With a 
characteristic tendency to state the best side of a subject, he 
writes that there is in some counties "a growing sentiment in 
favor of the freedmen's education," and an increasing degree of 
safety for Negro school- houses and teachers, especially for those 
of the colored race who seemed to escape the general prejudice 
against teachers of freedmen. 



ISO Samuel Chapman Atmsttong 

by their former masters, or perhaps a craving for a 
hitherto contraband knowledge, though without any 
sufficient understanding of the nature of it. Many 
sensible people believed that though the Negroes 
might have made or might be making political 
mistakes, they yet realized their own ignorance and 
inexperience and planned for the overcoming of 
these faults. It was thought that as material aid 
seemed to be their greatest present necessity, so 
education defined as the acquiring of information 
was their chief future need; those who believed in 
them were ready to advocate university training 
for them, while the skeptical avowed that any 
education was too good for a " nigger. " So, in spite 
of general interest in their mental needs, it came 
about that their economic and moral faults were in 
large measure overlooked; and the realization that 
thrift, energy and high moral standards were of 
necessity lacking in this lately enslaved race did 
not force itself upon most of their northern friends. 
But among those who came closely in contact 
with the Negroes were a few who grasped the fact 
that more important to their present or to their 
future than charitable relief, or even than educa- 
tion as commonly understood, was training in 
common morality and habits of industry and fore- 
sight. As General Armstrong said ; 

"The North generally thinks that the great thing 
is to free the Negro from his former owners; the real 
thing is to save him from himself. 'Gumption,' per- 



The Ffeedmcn's Bureau, J 866- 1 872 151 

ception, guiding instincts rather than a capacity to 
leam, are the advantages of our more favored race." 

He knew of the slave both what the slave- 
holder knew — that to put a veneer of learning on the 
plantation Negro would be dangerous nonsense — and 
what the northern friends of the Negro knew — that 
as a human being he deserved a fair chance in life. 
He saw that between the university and no school 
there was a middle course in which lay the hope 
of the race. 

This clear vision was no doubt due to his early 
training and observation and to a still persisting 
sense of aloofness not yet wholly swallowed up in 
the sense of citizenship in the United States. This 
feeling of separateness saved him not only from the 
errors of the partisan, but also from many petty local 
annoyances to which he might often have been 
subjected as agent of the Freedmen's Bureau. 
The Southerners could respect, if they could not 
love, an official with semi-foreign antecedents, and 
he was never troubled by the intense and burning 
local antagonism to his work which made the 
situation of many of his fellow-workers almost 
intolerable. 

He believed in the Freedmen's Bureau; he was 
thoroughly loyal to it and to the scheme of recon- 
struction of which it was a part, 

"I believe the continuance of the bureau desirable," 
he writes officially. "It is a moral power that is 



152 Samoel Chapman Afmstfong 

greatly felt ; it prevents more than it forcibly suppresses. 
The freedmen stretch out their arms to the Government 
not for 'bread and homes' (as has been said), but for 
help and justice; without the bureau they will receive 
neither. Every material hope held out by the Govern- 
ment has failed them; they are not what and where 
they expected to be; they did not fight for this. The 
bureau is their last hope; were they anything better 
than suppliants for what mercy they can get they would 
demand its continuance. For this they imiversally 
and earnestly petition." 

And again, relative to the whole subject of recon- 
struction, he writes in a private letter: 

"I am delighted with the new reconstruction bill. 
It is based on justice and truth. I am satisfied that 
Negro suffrage, if allowed, will become a fact without 
trouble or noise, and it's coming soon." 

These two years of work for the Freedmen's 
Bureau were difficult and uncertain. In doubt as to 
its continuance and as yet with no other means of 
livelihood at hand, Armstrong half expected to be 
turned adrift as he had been at the close of the 
war. But his determination, as he wrote at this 
time, was firm to "stick to the darkies while there 
is anything to be done for them." 

By 1869 the Freedmen's Bureau began to show 
signs of dissolution. Its courts were mercilessly 
criticized and at last pronounced unconstitutional. 
An outcry from all parts of the South arose against 
its authority. The North had to confess that the 



The Freedmen's B«tea«* J 866- J 872 15,3 

Negro had not made such progress in moral and 
material conditions as had been expected, and 
since such improvement was the only excuse for 
the continuance of the extraordinary powers of 
the bureau its work came to an end. 

But its educational department, which had 
justified itself by careful and successful work among 
the freedmen, was continued until 1872, when it, 
too, was brought to a close. Armstrong worked 
with this department till the end, carrying it on 
side by side with other and new activities. 

The brief time which Armstrong actually passed 
in the service of the Freedmen 's Bureau is more 
important to the story of his life by reason of its 
suggestions of his future work and character than 
any other equally short space of time. He entered 
upon it heart-free, care-free, with good spirits oozing 
from every pore, expressing himself in his private 
life by joyous hyperbole and unbounded delight in 
practical jokes, and after passing through a restless 
transitional period fell in love, found his life-work, 
and emerged from it a man sobered and settled, 
full-grown in his mental and moral powers. Of 
these brief pregnant years he left in his personal 
letters slight record, though official writings 
abound, and one must mainly glean from his 
outer activities what his inner life must have been. 



CHAPTER VI 
The Beginnings of Hampton 

General Armstrong had not been at Hampton 
more than a twelvemonth before there began to 
grow in his mind thoughts of an educational insti- 
tution for the Negroes different from any he saw 
there, and adapted especially to the needs of the 
ex-slaves. Such thoughts had long been present 
in his dreams ; he used to relate in after years how^ 
lying on the deck of the transport-ship that was 
conveying him and his troops to Texas, he saw, as 
it were in a dream, the Hampton school, completed 
and much as it later actually became; twice again 
had come this vision of future achievement, so 
that he rather decided upon Hampton as a site for 
such an institution than conceived now for the first 
time the idea of it. 

The peninsula of Old Point was indeed a most 
favorable situation, both historically and geo- 
graphically. He wrote later: 

"Close at hand the pioneer settlers of America and 
the first slaves landed on this continent — here Powhatan 
reigned; here the Indian was first met; here the first 
Indian child was baptized ; here freedom was first given 
to the slave by General Butler's famous contraband 

154 




SAMUEL CHAPMANT ARMSTRONG AT THE AGE OF 28 



The Beginnings of Hampton 155 

order; in sight of this shore the battle of the Monitor 
saved the Union and revolutionized naval warfare ; here 
General Grant based the operations of his final cam- 
paign. The place was easily accessible by railroad 
routes to the North and to a population of 2,000,000 of 
Negroes, the center of great prospective development, 
and withal a place most healthful and beautiful in 
situation." 

As he meditated upon the development of the 
plan, the Hilo Manual Labor School for Native 
Hawaiians,* which he had observed in his boyhood, 
often occurred to his mind as an example of success- 
ful industrial education for an imdeveloped race, 
and he remembered that it turned out men "less 
brilliant than the advanced schools, but more 
solid." But he saw that the cases of the Hawaiian 
and the Negro, though similar, were not parallel, 
and their needs not identical. There was a small 
and decadent people : here a large and rapidly grow- 
ing one, and a people related in a peculiar way to 
their neighbors, free from the responsibilities of 
property, yet holding in many places at least 
potential political power. 

Soon after the war, when the southern States 
made grants of money sufficient to provide a sort 
of schooling for blacks and whites separately, 

* The Hilo school was a boarding-school for Hawaiian boys, 
who paid their expenses by working in carpentry, housework, 
gardening, etc., in which they received some slight instruction. 
It was the only school where the Hawaiians were expected to 
work with hands as well as heads, and was a marked success. 
The school still exists. 



156 Samwel Chapman Atmstrong 

white teachers from the North took up the work 
of instructing the Negroes; but their efforts were 
regarded with disfavor by their southern white 
neighbors, and they were gradually replaced by 
Negro teachers, who, as has been said, met with less 
opposition or were even welcomed. 

In Virginia, where the school grants were un- 
usually prompt and large, there was naturally a 
great and growing demand for young colored 
people able to teach their race, but for several 
years this demand met with very inadequate 
response. 

General Armstrong saw this need and set about 
to supply the public schools of Virginia and the 
South with teachers — with teachers who should be 
leaders of their people toward better moral and 
physical as well as mental habits. 

From the first he viewed labor in this institution 
as a triple force; 

(i) In its moral aspect; strengthening the will and 
thus inculcating a sense of self-reliance and inde- 
pendence, relieving labor from the odium which 
slavery had cast upon it in the minds of the 
Negroes, keeping strongly sensual temperaments 
out of mischief, and giving habits of regularity. 
" It will make them men and women as nothing else 
will; it is the only way in which to make them 
good Christians," he said. 

(2) As a means whereby the pupils might earn 
the education that should fit them to be teachers 



The Beginnings of Hampton 157 

and leaders and earn it so far as possible by their 
own work. 

(3) As a means whereby the student might learn 
while in the school how to support himself after 
graduation by the work of his hands as well as by 
his brains, thus affording an example of industry 
to his people. 

To quote from a later writing of his own: 

"The thing to be done was clear: to train selected 
Negro youths who should go out and teach and lead 
their people, first by example, by getting land and 
homes; to give them not a dollar that they could earn 
for themselves; to teach respect for labor, to replace 
stupid drudgery with skilled hands, and to those ends 
to build up an industrial system for the sake not only 
of self-support and intelligent labor, but also for the 
sake of character." 

The idea of combining mental and manual train- 
ing is to-day made so familiar by a public school 
system where they are given more and more in 
conjunction, by the great endowed and the public 
technical schools, and by a system of State agri- 
cultural colleges extending throughout the Union, 
that the fact of its novelty thirty-two years ago 
seems strange. But the public mind was not only 
ignorant of the wise application of the theory, but 
prejudiced against any trial of it. A certain 
method of mingling mental and manual work had 
been, indeed, widely practised, and its results were 
well known. For some years before Hampton began, 



iS8 Samwel Chapman Armstfongf 

many institutions, among them Mt. Holyoke Sem- 
inary for women, Wellesley College, and Oberlin 
College for both sexes, had required the students 
to do a certain amount of labor, supposing that 
their work would help pay the expenses of the 
institutions. One by one these institutions gave 
up the experiment, as the pupils, in many cases 
young girls unused to manual work, under the 
strain of combined labor and study so often gave 
out that public opinion would not allow the contin- 
uance of the system. Oberlin College (Ohio) was 
the most prominent example of this, which may 
be called the "old-fashioned" type of manual- 
labor schools. Already in 1868 its experiment 
had f3,iled as a financial venture and had fallen 
short of the moral results which were hoped for from 
it. Armstrong knew the work of these schools 
and the judgment that had been passed on them 
by public opinion. He saw that the difficulties of 
combining mental and manual work were both 
financial and physical; at Oberlin the farmers com- 
plained that the students' hearts were in their 
books, while the teachers lamented that the stu- 
dents were too tired to study; no effective farm- 
work could be done with such half-hearted labor, 
while few pupils could with equal zeal study and 
toil with their hands. He saw that the Negro, 
inured to toil, tough in physical fiber, and without 
the highly developed American nervous system, 
could imdertake a daily routine that would kill a 



The Beginningfs of Hampton 159 

New England girl ; he thought, too, that by a certain 
skilful arrangement of work and study he could 
avoid the failure of either farm or book work. As 
the bulk of the Negroes were unfit for any form of 
industrial work other than farming, they must be 
placed in a school on a farm where they could plow 
and plant as they were used to doing. So he planned 
and thought as he worked in his office or rode on 
horseback over the sandy roads of his little king- 
dom during the first year of his stay at Hampton. 

In the early part of the year 1867 he wrote to 
the American Missionary Association, as the greatest 
financial power interested in Negro education, 
suggesting that this was the spot for a "permanent 
and great educational work," and recommending 
that a valuable estate — "Little Scotland" — com- 
prising 159 acres, fronting on Hampton River and 
now come on the market, be purchased. The asso- 
ciation promptly and cheerfully acceded to his 
request, and it was decided that a school should be 
placed there imder the auspices of the American 
Missionary Association, 

"Not expecting to have charge, but only to help, I 
was surprised one day," wrote Armstrong, "to receive 
a letter from Secretary E. P. Smith, of the American 
Missionary Association, stating that the man selected 
for the place had declined and asking if I would take it. 
I replied, 'Yes.' Till then my future had been blind; 
it had only been clear that there was a work to be done 
for the ex-slave and where and how to do it." 



i6o Samwel Chapman Armstrong 

Used to planning far in advance of the present, 
his brain was already actively devising ways in 
which money to pay for buildings and improve- 
ments could be procured. He felt sure that the 
people of the North would support a wise work 
for the freedmen; that the American Missionary 
Association would help him; and that the Freed- 
men's Bureau, through General Howard, would 
contribute something from its btiilding fimd. He 
thought, too, that the farm, by raising vegetables 
for the northern market, would be a source of 
profit and furnish, besides, almost all the supplies 
that would be necessary for the school. 

These problems of support were still for the 
future; for the present the full purchase money for 
the Wood farm — "Little Scotland" — was not yet 
forthcoming. The American Missionary Associa- 
tion had indeed authorized its purchase, but were 
not prepared to pay the whole sum, $19,000, and 
relied on the young man at whose word the purchase 
was made to help them in raising it. While the 
matter was thus hanging in the air, a gentleman 
from Pittsburg, Honorable Josiah King, execu- 
tor of the Avery estate, which included a legacy of 
$250,000 for Negro education, at the suggestion 
of the association paid a visit to Hampton. He 
was taken to a high building in the vicinity, was 
struck with the adaptability of the neighborhood 
to institutional purposes, and shortly paid, through 
the American Missionary Association, the $10,000 



The Beginnings of Hampton i6i 

which was still needed. To this visit of Mr. King 
Armstrong referred in later years as the first step 
toward the foundation of the Hampton Institute. 

The estate just purchased included two good 
brick buildings on the water-front, the mansion 
house, where Armstrong had lived since his coming 
to Hampton, and the flour mill of the plantation, 
occupied since the war by Negro families. There 
was upon the estate, back from the water's edge, a 
great triangular hospital building, formerly a United 
States hospital, including eight or ten acres of 
ground within its walls. To the right of the mansion 
house stretched a salt marsh, ending in a small 
tidal river and bounded by a sandy knoll on the 
water-front. Back from the water the bulk of the 
estate stretched in sandy level, its monotony 
varied by a few lanes of Negro quarters, dotted 
with hospital barracks, new and old (one dating 
even from the Revolutionary War), and botinded 
on the right by a national cemetery where 6,000 
troops were buried. The site had many advan- 
tages: the two solid buildings offered housing for 
classes and teachers, the barracks afforded material 
that could be used again in construction, and the 
Hampton River, easily navigable to this poiat, 
flowed past the grounds and gave good drainage. 

After the purchase of a farm to provide supplies 
and give opportimity for student labor, the next 
step was to provide housing for the future pupils, 
and on October i, 1867, ground was broken for 



1 62 Samuel Chapman Armstrong 

the first temporary buildings of the Hampton 
Institute. The American Missionary Association 
sent two carpenters to put up some cheap wooden 
structures, the material to be taken from the old 
hospital barracks. 

Mr. Albert Howe, who was in charge of the con- 
struction, writes: 

"After some difficulties we put two wards together, 
making a long one-story building, 250 feet long, with 
belfry in the middle; next to it a small kitchen, where 
'Uncle Tom' cooked for the school. . . . Once 
General Armstrong, pointing to a knoll (or bluff) 
where Academic Hall now stands, said: 'That's just 
the place for an academic building; don't take too much 
pains with these barracks ; three years will demonstrate 
whether we can make teachers out of these colored 
people; then we shall make some substantial, lasting 
buildings. That will be the spot for the Academic 
Hall, and just here a building for girls and a general 
dining-room — we'll call it Virginia Hall.' He gave 
them the very names they bear now. Then he pointed 
out sites for boys' cottages — all just as you see it now. 
I sat on a log and looked at him — I thought he was a 
visionary — it all came to pass." 

As early as 1867 Armstrong foresaw the coming 
need of friends in the North and, granted a brief 
leave of absence, took several trips thither, quietly 
getting himself introduced to a few influential people 
here and there. His work for the Negroes on the 
peninsula was not unknown, and his project of 
starting a normal school to train colored teachers 



The Begmning:s of Hampton 163 

aroused interest wherever it was heard of. In a 
letter to his mother he thus describes one of these 
early trips: 

"I can't complain of not being appreciated in this 
country. I wish you could read the warm, friendly 
words before me of Miss Anna Lowell, sister of the noble 
General Charles Lowell, who fell in the Shenandoah. 
We have been many months working together and a 
true friendship has sprung up — or see the splendid 
Woolsey family of New York, who have been so kind 
to me. They are full of interest in my work, are helping 
me much, and they have a fine army record. Then, if 
I am not bragging too much, the Emersons of Concord 
and Higginsons of Cambridge seem to remember me 
kindly. . . . But enough to show you that I am 
well guarded, heartily encouraged, most kindly treated, 
extravagantly complimented, and am now prospering 
finely with my normal school. 

"This being in the world is ever3rthing; it gives a 
man manner, and as Emerson says most truly, ' Manner 
is power.' My experience shows that in the quickness 
of modem life is the necessity of instant action in many 
cases. 'The first step counts,' and the success of the 
first step depends on how it is done; that is often well 
or ill, according to manner. The first thing is to be 
right and true. The second thing is to be transparent, 
so that the right and true in one shall shine out; but 
that is manner, and can only be reached by the highest 
culture." 

A flattering offer was made to him in the fall of 
1867, which he describes in the same letter: 

"But I must tell you about my visit to Washington. 



164 Samuel Chapman Armstrong 

Some days ago I received a telegram from General 
Howard to report in person to him at once. Ignorant 
of his intention, I proceeded without delay to his head- 
quarters. It seems he wished me to take charge of the 
Howard University at Washington — his pet enterprise. 
There are sixty acres of land, splendidly located, with 
a commanding view, and two large btiildings of artificial 
stone going up, one for the students' rooms and one 
for recitation, lecture, library, etc. They will look 
splendidly. Close by is General Howard's new home. 
The locality will be the most stylish in the city. The 
university is intended to be central for (especially, 
though not solely) the colored youth of the country; 
to be, if Howard has his way, the largest educational 
enterprise of its kind {i.e., for freedmen) in the land. 
At present and for a few years the labor will be all 
preparatory, as the freed children are not at all advanced. 
I was desired and very urgently and persistently asked 
to take hold of this institution, become its head, and 
make out of it what is possible. I met the trustees 
twice, looked over the whole ground carefully, and 
refused for two reasons. First, I was in honor bound 
to the American Missionary Association that had so 
warmly supported me here and carried out all my 
plans. Secondly, I consider that my own enterprise 
here has better possibilities (is more central with refer- 
ence to freedmen and has important advantages). 
. . . Howard is one of the noblest, bravest and 
kindest of men. He has used me remarkably well." 

The letter continues: 

"After refusing General Howard's offer, I took care to 
urge my own scheme; returning through Richmond, had 
an interview with General Brown, who has given up his 



The Begfinnlngfs of Hampton 165 

York River affair, has come over to my side and is 
going to help my institution. We are ahead and alone. 
The ground is new. The enterprise is as full of bad 
possibilities as of good ones; most embarrassing condi- 
tions will occur from time to time; all is experiment, but 
all is hopeful. The success of this will be the guarantee 
of a dozen more like it in the South. I have to face 
the fact that a manual-labor school never yet succeeded 
in the North, but the powers of prayer and faith are 
strong — in these we will conquer. 

"I am in the midst of the battle now. Worked very 
hard. Just about to open. Applicants are coming 
forward encouragingly. Truly the pillar of cloud is 
before us. Every serious difhculty seems to be removed. 
What can resist the pressure of steady, energetic 
pressure, the force of a single right idea pushed month 
after month in its natural development ? If I succeed 
it will be because of carefully selecting a thing to do 
and the doing of it. Few men comprehend the deep 
philosophy of one-man power. As a soldier I would 
always fight on the principle of all great warriors, 
'concentration and celerity.' As an educator, as any- 
thing, I would apply that same always sound principle, 
adding to it with reference to enemies or any other 
obstacle, 'Divide and be conquered.'" 

The new school was to open with the spring of 
1868, and Armstrong looked forward cheerfully to its 
financial prospects. General Howard was executing 
a skilful flank movement in his dealings with Con- 
gress for the purpose of adding to the construction 
fund of the Freedmen's Bureau, which he describes 
as follows: 



1 66 Samoel Chapman Afmstrongf 

"In Washington there was a great population of 
colored refugees — contrabands, as they were called. 
They had flocked there as to the source of light and 
love. They were in a deplorable condition, with almost 
nothing to eat or wear. Congress gave them soup, now 
and then clothing. It was a great question what to do 
with them or for them. I thought it would be best 
to transport every able-bodied man and woman to some 
place where they could get labor. I sent off 10,000 
from Washington alone. 

** Now, though the idea of education or any legislation 
or work to elevate them did not commend itself to 
Congress or find any favor, the idea of transporting 
was immensely popular at once. * Transportation ! 
Transportation! That's the idea; transport them, of 
course, anywhere. If to Africa, so much the better.' 
So then I got large appropriations for that purpose 
repeatedly, as often as I asked for them, without any 
trouble, much more than I asked. But a great many 
were glad to go and pay their own way in part. So I 
reduced the population sufficiently without the least 
trouble, and when it was done there remained a very 
large surplus from the appropriations. I simply asked 
Congress that I might transfer what funds were left to 
educational purposes, and the request was granted 
without much thought of what they were doing. So 
Hampton got its plum and all the other institutions 
were started, all as the restdt of that quiet flanking 
operation." * 

Out of this fund Armstrong expected a grant 
of $20,000. 

As the year 1868 opened he hastened his efforts 

*In an address delivered at Hampton Institute in 1889. 



The Beginningfs of Hampton 167 

to be ready for pupils in April. The one-story bar- 
rack, built of old lumber, was completed, the flour 
mill repaired, and crops planted to mature in June 
in time for shipment to the northern market. 

On April i, 1868, school was opened with an 
attendance of fifteen pupils and a teacher and a 
matron, both employed by the American Mission- 
ary Association. A few days after the opening 
of school, April 5th, he wrote to his mother: 

"Things here look well. My machine has just 
commenced to run. The anxiety and patient effort it 
has cost are great, but I am now satisfied with it all. 
. . . The buildings I have erected and repaired are 
insured for $15,000, less than their real value." 

By April 26th there were thirty pupils in the 
school, doing manual work in the morning and 
studying in the afternoons and evenings. The boys 
worked on the farm, the girls at housework; three 
girls supported themselves by working at a trade 
learned before coming. The pupils worked in 
squads, one squad working two days in the week 
and studying the other four; they were paid for 
their work, not in cash, but in credit on the books of 
the school. Armstrong hoped by this plan to obtain 
sets of men who should be steadily employed at 
labor and study for regular alternate periods, so 
that study should not suffer from daily interrup- 
tion as it did at Oberlin, where part of every day 
was spent on the farm, and farm work should not 



1 68 Samuel Chapman Armstfong 

suffer from having laborers whose minds were bent 
on their books. Students were paid a wage, "up 
to the point of encouragement," as he said, of 8 cents 
per hour; whereas at Oberlin only 4 to 7 cents for 
men and 3 to 4 cents for women was paid. Board 
was $10 a month, of which half, or in case 
of extreme want the whole, could be worked out. 
Those who worked out the entire sum were allowed 
to attend school at night, thus fitting themselves 
mentally at the same time as financially to enter the 
day school later. If a student wished to earn his 
way by working at some industry other than 
what was provided by the school, he was allowed 
to do so. No student was expected to pay for his 
tuition, a burden which would have been too great 
for any Negro to carry in those early times. The 
expense of tuition, estimated at $70 a year, was 
borne by the management. 

With all the care and time incidental to getting 
this organization in running order, Armstrong was 
still called on to perform his duties as Freedmen's 
Bureau agent, for the summer of 1868 was not yet 
over. In fact, had it not been for the salary 
received from the Bureau until 1872 he could 
not have carried on the work of starting Hampton 
at all through these unsettled years, for he did not 
take even the salary allowed him out of the school 
funds, saying: 

"Some of my friends don't like this, but they little 
know the way of successful leadership. The rebel offi- 



The Beginnings of Hampton 169 

cers fought without pay, and why should not I in . ten 
times better cause? ... I have so far had- .very- 
thing needed for personal comfort, yes, a jolly goc 1 time 
on the whole, with an occasional grind and sor.ietimes 
an impecunious sensation." 



In June, 18^8, he wrote: 



"However it [the bureau] goes, I am too firmly 
anchored here to be moved or greatly disappointed by 
its failure. The chances are that my life-work is here, 
and I shall not regret it." 

He continues: 

" It is now spring harvest, and we shall gather $2,000 
worth of vegetables which the students have raised. 
They will be sold in New York and Baltimore. Just 
sold a pea crop for $900 — half of it clear profit." 

The establishment of a profitable vegetable farm 
seems to have been regarded by Armstrong in a 
double light. 

"It is my intention," he wrote, "to wait till another 
year's results are in and when, if successful, I shall have 
mastered a highly profitable business, will know all 
about it, and of course be able to do a second time what 
I have done once. In that case I shall make an effort 
to buy and establish a 'truck' farm of my own, thus 
having something to fall back upon and also being 
known as a landowner, which will make my position 
socially far more pleasant and dignified and my political 
chances greatly improved. Nothing is so bad for one 
in political life as to be dependent entirely upon his 



1 7° Samuel Chapman Armstrong 

officu His opponents know it is his weak point and 
consec iiently fling his poverty in the faces of his friends, 
and hi; friends are apt to exact all sorts of things from 
him because he is dependent upon their favor. Here 
in the J: outh, where nearly all northern men are poor, 
it is a pt werful thing, a great foothold, to be supposed 
even to b worth something." 

During the summer of 1868 he made another 
northern trip by special order of General Howard, 
in order to visit the agricultural and normal schools 
of the North. 3ince his last trip his position had 
become more assured, and he was recognized as an 
official representative of the educational work 
done by the Freedmen's Bureau and by the Ameri- 
can Missionary Association. 

He felt while on this trip how dear to him the 
work at Hampton was becoming, full of perplexity 
though it often was. He writes from Boston : 

"I have been over the 'Athens ' but wouldn't live 
here for anything. I am glad I'm on the outposts doing 
frontier duty and pioneer work, for the South is a 
heathen land and Hampton is on the borders thereof. 
I see my whole nature calls me to the work that is done 
there — to lay foundations strong and not do frescoes 
and fancy work." 

The fall term opened prosperously. A few days 
after its beginning he wrote: 

"This is no easy machine to run wisely, rightly. 
The darkies are so full of human nature and have to 



The Beginnings of Hampton 171 

be most carefully watched over. They are apt to be 
possessed with strange notions. To simply control 
them is one thing, but to educate, to draw them out, to 
develop the germ of good possibilities into firm fruition, 
requires the utmost care. Eternal vigilance will be the 
price of success. A very good and noble lady, Mrs. 
Griggs, of New York, has just given $1,000 to the 
Institute. Work is going ahead. I have just secured 
for our farm work an old hospital worth several hundred 
dollars. ... I am driving things ahead as fast as 
possible and hope with a well-appointed farm next 
year to make good profits. I have just been refitting 
our home.* This house is a brick thing, rather ungainly 
from the exterior, but within it is quite pleasant and 
comfortable since the repairs. Outside there is a wide 
piazza, about fourteen feet wide and forty feet long, 
from which there is a pleasant view and where it is 
pleasant to promenade." 

The late fall and early winter were spent in the 
search for a farmer who should be scientific enough 
to command respect and practical enough to make 
the farm profitable. The farm was at that time 
considered the most completely appointed in the 
State, and Armstrong was ambitious to make it the 
best and most scientifically managed in the South. 
He looked as far north as New Jersey for his man, 
writing : 

"This is an anxious sort of a trip for me, because so 
much — our whole financial success — depends on my 
choice of the right man. I only now begin to compre- 

*Ref erring to the old mansion house, where he lived and 
which he expected to make his permanent home. 



172 Samttel Chapman Atmsttong 

hend the difficulty of getting the right men for this 
work. I see why most institutions and enterprises 
fail. There are lots of men, but few who are good for 
anything. Many men can talk, can shine — few can do 
things." 

He succeeded in finding the right man, who abso- 
lutely refused his offer, but eventually came to 
Hampton — a change of heart not at all uncommon 
under Armstrong's magnetic determination to win 
his chosen assistants. 

The year 1869 proved to be a most eventful 
one. Armstrong had determined on the erection 
of an expensive and elaborate brick building for 
the class work at Hampton, to be called Academic 
Hall. He received from General Howard, as he 
had hoped, the sum of $20,000 toward it, and in 
order that the structure might be a tasteful one 
secured the services of Richard M. Hunt as archi- 
tect. The bricks were to be made on the grounds, 
an industry which was soon in full operation, the 
students making several thousand bricks a day. 
He told the American Missionary Association that 
he would not depend on them for a cent of the 
money for its erection, and looked forward to a 
struggle to raise the $13,000 which, with the $20,000 
already secured, would, he thought, cover the cost. 

September 20th he wrote: 

"This has been an interesting day. The mason from 
New York has come and there is the bustle of prepara- 





'ki^^im *j- 



The Beginnings of Hampton 173 

tion. To-morrow the first bricks are to be laid. Between 
them and the last — between the first stroke of the 
mason's trowel and the last — what a world of anxiety 
and labor there will be ! The erecting of this building 
is the most responsible and conspicuous and fateful 
single executive act of my life. The failure of it would 
be a crushing blow to body and mind. I could not 
bear failure. The success of it will be only an inspiration 
to other fields of effort, in what directions I cannot tell, 
but they will be opened when it is time to enter them. 
To-day two more masons went to work and there are 
now twelve of them laying bricks. We put up about 
20,000 bricks a day. Truly they say the building 
ground is a busy place. I only pay $3 a day, and, 
what is unknown in this country, I pay white and black 
just the same when the work is the same. It pleases 
the darkies, but the white masons don't like it much. 
They have an idea that the institute is rich and think 
it hard if we don't give them more than anybody else. 
I have to be supremely indifferent and tell them to go 
wherever I like, though I should hate to have them 
leave. Half colored and half white is the character 
of my gang; they get along in millennial peace. Backy* 
and I rather enjoy the plotting of these fellows; they 
can't get very far ahead of us. 

"Two hundred and fifty barrels of cement arrived 
from New York this morning and had to be unloaded 
at our wharf. What a singular providence it is that 
we have here ever5;i;hing we need ! This wharf, that 
is of such service and economy to us, was built 
just at the close of the war for the purpose of 
landing wounded soldiers more conveniently and 
comfortably, but was never quite completed. It is 
just what we want." 

♦His brother Baxter. 



174 Samtjel Chapman Atmstrong 

An incident in connection with the erection of 
Academic Hall is recorded by Doctor Strieby, the 
senior secretary of the American Missionary Asso- 
ciation. He and several other men of influence 
and character, among them Doctor Mark Hopkins, 
the venerable president of Williams College, and 
General Garfield, were invited to visit Hampton in 
July, 1869, to consult with General Armstrong 
about his plans and about the situation of the 
new building. Most of them thought that the pur- 
chase of the Chesapeake Female Seminary (now the 
main building of the Veterans' Home at Hampton), 
would be wiser than the erection of a new building, 
with all the risks involved. Armstrong, however, 
opposed this plan strongly, fearing the traces of 
disease that might linger in the building as a heritage 
from its use as a hospital in war time, and perceiv- 
ing that the level flats stretching along its water- 
front would make drainage difficult and expensive. 

"We all met on the veranda of the General's house," 
says Doctor Strieby. "We looked the matter over. 
I said, 'That is the thing to do — to buy the seminary 
building.' General Armstrong was inflexibly opposed 
to it (for one reason that it would prevent the erection of 
a more suitable and lasting building) . At last President 
Mark Hopkins took me to one side and said, 'We had 
better let this young man have his way.' And we did." 

So the building was placed where Armstrong 
had determined, some two years before, that it 



The Beginnings of Hampton 175 

should be placed, and by the commencement of 
the fall term of 1870 was in order for use. 

The letters to his mother grew briefer and less 
frequent from this time, the beginning of his active 
work at Hampton ; but letters to a new correspond- 
ent give for a time in equal detail his thoughts 
and hopes for his work. The recipient of these 
confidences was Miss Emma Dean Walker, of Stock- 
bridge, Massachusetts, to whom he was married in 
October, 1869. Hereafter for their married life of nine 
years the deepest expressions of thought and feeling 
are to be found in his letters to her. 

Emm^a Walker was a young girl of rare charm 
of person and character, and brought to her new 
home at Hampton a spirit of devotion to her 
husband's ideals which was of inestimable delight 
to him. A frail physique prevented active service 
on her part, and they were constantly separated, 
both by the needs of the Hampton school for 
money and by her own wanderings in search 
of health. But in spite of drawbacks the 
married life of these two, united by a singu- 
larly close devotion to each other and to high 
ideals of unselfish living, was full of sympathy 
and joy. 

Having now a home and family, Armstrong's 
thoughts turned longingly sometimes toward the 
possibility of securing a more fixed income and 
position. He considered running for Congress, but 
soon gave up definitely and permanently ideas of 



176 Samuel Chapman Armstrong 

a political advancement, writing to his mother as 
follows ; 

"I have concluded to give up all Congressional plans 
and to stick to my work here. This is not because my 
political chances are not good. They are, I suppose, 
excellent; but I like less. and less this breaking off one 
thing and going into another, and besides the tendencies 
and dangers of politics I greatly fear. I am more and 
more disgusted with all kinds of public life. There's 
more worry and bother about it than the positions are 
worth. It has ceased to attract." 

He applied during the fall for the position of 
State assessor of taxes, to which a good salary was 
attached, but failed to get it. The conclusion must 
have forced itself upon him that the work he had 
chosen was his for better or worse, and was, more- 
over, a jealous mistress, to be cherished to the 
exclusion of all other interests. 

The final step in the beginnings of Hampton, 
and one which marked the opening of a new period 
in its development, was an act passed by the General 
Assembly of Virginia June 4, 1870, incorporating 
the "Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, 
for the instruction of youth in the various common 
schools, academic and industrial branches, the 
best methods of teaching same and best mode of 
practical industry in its application to agricul- 
ture and the mechanic arts." 

The breadth of scope shown by this charter, 
including every race, industry and method, indi- 



The Beginnings of Hampton 177 

cates clearly that the founder realized the possibil- 
ities of his school and wished to hamper its future 
by no limitations. But the school was not incor- 
porated by the Virginia Legislature without con- 
siderable discussion, and many were the busy days 
passed by Armstrong that spring of 1870 in the hot 
Richmond lobbies, using his persuasive powers on 
the conservative ex-Confederates. It is greatly to 
the credit of his eloquence, and a tribute also to 
their real liberality, that they should have passed 
such an act at a time when hot passions still seethed 
about every southern legislative hall. 

April 30, 1870, he wrote to his friend and adviser, 
General J. P. B. Marshall, who soon became treas- 
urer of the Hampton school: 

"Our act has not yet passed the House. There has 
been trouble in the matter of making 'no distinction of 
color.' The conservatives are opposed to such a 
liberal basis. They will consent to incorporate 'with- 
out distinction of color' only on the ground that a 
large portion of the money already granted to this in- 
titute has been given on express condition that all 
should be admitted without distinction of color. I 
have been compelled to obtain papers to prove this fact 
— have just done so, and probably we'll be all right 
shortly." 

It was an early dream of his, never realized 
except in the case of one struggling family of poor 
whites to whom he gave shelter and a job, that he 
could directly help the whites of the South by giving 



178 Samuel Chapman Armstrongf 

them an industrial education at Hampton. He 
foresaw the coming lack among them of skilled 
labor, saying mournfully, ' ' The whites have no 
apprentices ! ' ' and sincerely wished to aid them 
in their economic distress. 



PART II 

ACCOMPLISHMENT 




' •C-^^^'TW" 



GENERAL ARMSTRONG— 1880 



CHAPTER VII 

At Hampton, i 8 70-1 890 

The story of the ensuing twenty years, 1870-1890, 
is a story of struggle for the existence and growth 
of the Hampton school. Of this period there is 
little to be learned from Armstrong's personal 
letters; his extended activity left him no time for 
the leisurely letter writing of earlier years. In 
formal reports and public speeches, and in a few 
letters that touch slightly on the current events of 
his life, are to be found indications of his point of 
view on various matters ; but of the story of his life 
as told in his own words there is no record. One 
must look rather at the record of the development 
of Hampton school — study the spirit that formed 
it or trace in the North the creation of a public 
sentiment in favor of Negro industrial education, 
and try to re-create from the memories of friends 
the personality that, more than all his eloquence, 
won him a hearing in the busy northern world. 

The spirit of school life at Hampton is expressed 
in a few words which he spoke in 1891 at an anni- 
versary of his old school in the Hawaiian Islands : 

"It remains to make the best of things. Those who 
181 



i82 Samwel Chapman Afmstrong 

are hopeless disarm themselves, and may as well go to 
the rear; men and women of faith, optimists, to the 
front. This is the Christian era. '/« hoc signo vinces' 
is the motto of the faithftd; they are not afraid. But 
mere optimism is stupid; sanctified common sense is 
the force that counts. Work for God and man is full 
of detail. It needs organization, requires subordination, 
sometimes painfvd holding of the tongue; gabble and 
gossip, even that of the pious, is one of the most fatal 
devices of the evil one; the friction and fuss in God's 
army does much to defeat it. Many people are good, 
but good for nothing. Working together is as im- 
portant as working at all." 

The fact that General Armstrong incorporated 
his first annual report to the trustees in a report of 
twenty years later, with the comment that he would 
hardly change a word of it for present or future 
use, is significant. Many men start with a concep- 
tion of their work which is modified by circum- 
stances and experience; but Armstrong adhered 
to the same plan for the entire length of his active 
life, and his reports and letters might, but for the 
record of events of the year — this building com- 
pleted, that needed — be interchanged, putting the 
first last and the last first. So, too, his views on 
Negro affairs, once stated, remain unchanged, for 
it could be said of the Negro throughout this period 
that * ' in spite of material and intellectual advances, 
his deficiencies of character are worse for him and 
for the world than his fnere ignorance." * 

* First annual report to trustees, 1870. 



At Hampton. J870-J890 183 

Most of the students at Hampton for this term of 
years came from working people who were more 
ambitious for their children than for themselves. 
Although many of these young men and women 
were bom after slavery was past, their traditions 
were of slavery; and while they were well meaning 
and prepared to work if they had to, and while 
they practised the forms of Christianity, they 
possessed but little comprehension of the real 
teachings of Christ, and were ignorant alike of the 
care of body and mind. Merry of temperament, 
care did not long trouble their breasts; seeking the 
light with earnestness, they had to contend against 
the bad influences of inheritance and lack of training. 
No one believed in them, and they did not believe 
in themselves; they needed an accession of self- 
respect, and to stimulate this quality General 
Armstrong's first efforts were directed. 

Partly for this purpose and partly in order to 
provide for permanence and future growth, the 
first buildings at Hampton were costly and imposing 
brick structures. The first building, Academic Hall, 
stood alone on a sandy knoll by the water, with 
boys' dormitories in the top and rooms for recitations 
occupying the body of the building. This building, 
which Armstrong spoke of as "my monument as 
much as anybody's," rose above the salt marshes 
and fiats of that desolate region like a monu- 
ment indeed. 

It was soon followed by a second and larger 



z84 Samuel Chapman Armstrong' 

building, made necessary by the rapid increase in 
the number of pupils and the rapid expansion of 
the industrial idea. 

This second building, costing $76,000, was begun 
when but $2 ,000 was on hand ; but General Armstrong 
was confident that the people would sustain a wise 
work for the freedmen if they could feel that real 
enterprise and devotion were behind the plea which 
he made to them; he had a hole dug, piled the 
bricks and lumber about it, built the foundation, 
had the corner-stone ready to be laid, and invited 
a large party from New York and Boston to come 
down and visit the "mute appeal." * As a result of 
his efforts, money came with which to begin the 
erection of the building, and though the panic of 
1873 intervened between the beginning and the 
completion of the building, he was able, through the 
efforts of the "Hampton Singers," who "sung up" 
its brick walls with true enthusiasm for the cause, 
to complete it without running into debt. 

Virginia Hall was a dignified building, of a capac- 
ity far beyond the actual needs of the Hampton 
school as it was at that time. Some people doubted 
the wisdom of erecting such an expensive and com- 
paratively elaborate structure for the instruction of 
the proverbially careless, unappreciative Negroes, who 
were supposed to be trained merely as teachers for 
primary schools; the expenditure of $76,000 for such 

*As he afterward laughingly called a hole dug for the pur- 
pose of dumbly begging aid. 



At Hampton, J870-J890 185 

a purpose seemed a disproportionate outlay. Arm- 
strong defended his course by showing how economic- 
ally in such a building the various functions assigned 
to it could be carried on. "Serving the cause by 
its well-arranged and commodious interior, con- 
taining no lot of waste room," he said. Scientific 
cooking and heating were valuable object lessons for 
boys and girls just out of a log cabin. He pointed 
out that a less tasteful and imposing structure 
would have failed to awaken among the graduates 
so much pride in their Alma Mater, and that the 
reputation and influence of the school, both among 
its white and its black neighbors, would be greatly 
increased by the erection of a building of which 
every one could be proud. When completed, 
the lofty towers of Virginia Hall, showing far 
above any building in the vicinity, seen for miles 
over the low-lying country by the dwellers in 
hundreds of squalid and hopeless Negro homes and 
by hundreds of oystermen on the waters of Chesa- 
peake Bay, stood for far more than the fact that a 
normal school for Negro youths was situated there ; 
it stood for the faith in their race that was held by 
one man who dared to risk financial reputation as 
well as social position in their behalf. 

Although no expense was spared to make the 
buildings permanent and commanding, the furnish- 
ings of the room within were simple to plainness, 
"Costly buildings stimulate self-respect; but beds, 
furniture and clothing are good but simple, no 



1 86 Samuel Chapman Armstfong 

better than what they can, by their own industry, get 
at home." To this rule Armstrong ahvays adhered, 
providing male students with home-made straw 
mattresses, and all with such simple furnishing that 
any of it could have been made at his own home by 
either boy or girl. The same idea was carried out 
in regard to food; accustomed at home to "hog and 
hominy," this or its equivalent was their fare at 
school, though he took care that it should be 
properly cooked and served. 

After the erection of Virginia Hall other buildings 
followed in rapid succession, so that during this 
period the material growth of the school was its 
most marked characteristic. But in Armstrong's 
thought the heart of all his work was the arrange- 
ment of an effective, practical routine of hand and 
head work, the preservation of such an atmosphere 
of energy and devotion that no student could fail 
to be impressed by it. 

The routine planned in 1870 and continued for 
twenty years practically unchanged was simple. 
Beginning an hour before daybreak in winter, a 
twelve-hour day of work, study and military drill, 
with but a few minutes for daily recreation, left 
little time for self-indulgence and indolence. ' ' There 
is little mischief done where there is no time for it; 
activity is a purifier," said General Armstrong. 
Coeducation, too, a part of the Hampton scheme, 
which General Armstrong considered second only 
to manual labor as an educational force for the 



At Hampton. J 870- J 890 187 

Negro, was only made possible by this very arduous 
routine. "Its success," he writes, "is assured by 
incessant varied activity of mind and body, with 
proper relaxation and amusement in an atmosphere 
of Christian influence and sympathy." 

It was a test of physique and endurance in which 
few white men and women could have come out 
victorious. And herein lay Armstrong's audacity 
and the secret of his success, that he had dared to 
apply it to the indolent Negro ; seeing in his inherited 
reserve of physical endurance and patience to plod 
on toward a far-away goal, in his docile disposition 
which enabled him to accept a hard-and-fast routine 
without revolt, qualities which fitted him for constant 
application and continuous effort at high tension. 

General Armstrong met his pupils regularly and 
often, both in public and private. If any had a 
"grievance," as he himself would say, or was dis- 
satisfied with work or surroundings, he had but to 
ask in order to see "the General," as Armstrong 
was commonly called by his pupils. He was 
accessible to all, sitting in the little box of a room 
that served him for m.any years as an office, where 
he received complaints and requests and discharged 
them with quick comprehension of the point and 
a ready, keen answer that closed the discussion. 
Many of his pupils will remember him thus seated, 
his pen in his hand, his piercing eyes looking out 
over glasses, a straight figure instinct with life. 

He knew how to be severe, having no patience 



1 88 Samuel Chapman Armstrong 

with lying or laziness. "There is no place for a 
lazy man in this world or the next," he said. But 
a kindly humor lurked in his eyes, and he never 
turned a culprit away without the sense that he 
was understood and had been fairly treated. Words 
that he sometimes used, whether quoted or original, 
described his attitude toward his pupils: " Human, 
therefore imperfect; human, therefore capable of 
improvement." 

For Negroes and Indians with their shadowed past 
he had a pity and long suffering that enabled him 
to bear their failings with philosophy and kept him 
from impatience under disappointment. Once, 
when a promising pupil unexpectedly went to the 
bad, he said : "If we were not working for two 
hundred years hence, this might be discouraging." 
Through all discipline ran his firm military methods ; 
he was severe toward an offense, but when the 
punishment was over he bore no ill will toward the 
offender — a method well adapted to increase in the 
suspicious natures of the Negro and Indian that 
confidence in him which they already felt. 

He met some of his pupils weekly in the class- 
room, instructing them in his favorite study of 
moral philosophy, as it was then called, using for a 
text-book Doctor Hopkins's "Outline Study of 
Man." It was a great pleasure and relaxation 
to him in the midst of his prosaic daily routine to 
turn to these larger aspects of man, his possibilities 
and his destiny, which were associated with the 



At Hampton. J 870-1890 189 

leader of his youth and with the quiet seclusion of 
his college days. He used Doctor Hopkins's methods 
in conducting a class, stimulating by quick questions 
and witty rejoinder the interest and mental activity 
of his scholars. Like Doctor Hopkins, he believed 
that the class-room should be a jolly place, and used, 
to say that no recitation was complete without at 
least one good laugh. "Laughter makes sport of 
work," he said. While his military manner and 
stem eye made him feared by many in the class- 
room, it soon became evident to the most timid, 
from his patience in waiting for an answer or 
explaining details to the slow, that he was rather to 
be loved than feared. As he advanced in years a 
brusque manner grew upon him, which often 
scared the timid, both subordinates and pupils, but 
in the end they all understood his never-failing 
patience and love. 

One who would see him in his most usual and 
interesting relation to his pupils, however, must 
picture him as addressing them nightly or weekly 
from the central platform of a large upper room 
known as the chapel, with seats arranged in tiers, 
so that one addressing the audience could hold 
every eye, where seven hundred men and women, 
Indian, Negro and white, were gathered to listen to 
him. On such occasions he felt and appeared like 
a general taking command of his little army, an 
army organized to fight vice and ignorance, against 
which he stood forth as if they had been foes of 



19° Samuel Chapman Armstfongf 

flesh and blood. It was his custom to hold by rapid 
question and answer, as in his class-room, the atten- 
tion of his childlike audience. 

An excellent example of his method of address 
is the following, delivered shortly before his death 
in 1893: 

" Spend your life in doing what you can well. If you 
can teach, teach. If you can't teach, but can cook well, 
do that. If a man can black boots better than anything 
else, what had he better do ? Black boots. [Laughter.] 
Yes, and if a girl can make an excellent nurse, and do 
that better than anything else, what had she better do ? 
Nurse. Yes, she can do great good that way in taking 
care of the sick and suffering. Some of our girls have 
done great good already in that way. Do what you can 
do well and people will respect it and respect you. 
That is what the world wants of every one. It is a 
great thing in life to find out what you can do well. 
If a man can't do anything well, what's the matter 
with him? Lazy! Yes, that's it. A lazy man can't 
do anything well and no one wants him around. God 
didn't make the world for lazy people. 

"The Senior Class is soon to go out. You must 
expect to teach, and you can teach well, can't you? 
You must try, at any rate. If after trying you find 
you can't, then do something else that you can do; but 
give it a fair trial. This school is a school to train 
teachers. It is bound to turn out teachers. It must 
be honest. A great deal of money is given and spent 
for this object, so we must honestly carry it out. 

"We send out the Middle Class, too, to teach a year 
before they take the Senior studies. How many are 
in the Middle Class now? Seventy-five. And how 



At Hampton. J 870- J 890 191 

many are expecting to teach? [All hands went up.] 
All. That's good. Now I will ask some of the Seniors 
to say what their year out teaching did for them. . , . 
Go out from here to fight against sin. Fight the devil. 
Fight against badness, evil and ignorance, disease, bad 
cooking. Help your people in teaching, in care of the 
sick, in improving land, in making better homes. Do 
what you can do well, and do it as well as you can." 

Many of these talks bore a deep religious impress, 
and many young men and women date from them 
their first impulse toward a true Christian life. 
Armstrong's nature was so deeply ingrained with 
the sense of the presence of a living God that his 
slightest word on spiritual themes carried peculiar 
weight. There was no pupil present who did not 
gain from Armstrong an illuminating sense of the 
value of his own petty routine of work, who did not 
feel that his daily tasks were made interesting 
because they were part of a large, comprehensible 
plan, made worth while because behind them all 
lay Armstrong's immovable faith in him. There 
was no Negro, however ignorant or dull, who did 
not at times catch a glimpse of this inspiring vision 
of his possibilities and, if he remained long under 
the influence of it, become moved into accept- 
ance of it. 

Though General Armstrong often expressed him- 
self imconventionally when talking with his personal 
friends on religious matters, in his work he adhered 
closely to the customary forms of religious expression. 



192 Samuel Chapman Armstfongf 

He always bore in mind where his pupils came from 
and to what manner of life they were going, and 
that what they carried away with them must be 
not only genuine, but simple and easily grasped by 
their neighbors. He saw that they must not be 
thrown out of sympathy with what was good in the 
methods in vogue about them, and never spoke in a 
way calculated to disturb the simple religious con- 
victions of his audience. Regarding religious forms 
he once said: "They're imperfect enough, but they 
are the best we've got." He was urgent in his 
demands on the students to become Christians while 
at Hampton, saying that if they did not then do 
so they never would. He often spoke at prayer 
meetings held by the students, encouraging a free, 
genuine expression of religious feeling, but cutting 
ruthlessly off long-winded remarks and expressions 
savoring of cant. In the early days of the school, 
when it was still in the leading-strings of the Ameri- 
can Missionary Association, the question of "ortho- 
dox or non-orthodox," even to the point of receiving 
Unitarian money, * was a live one. He answered it 
in his own direct way, and his words were as true 
in 1890 as when they were written in 1870: 

"The institute must have a positive character. It 
has ! It is orthodox and that's the end of it, although 
I confess I never told the school it was so, and I don't 
believe one of our pupils knows what 'orthodox' means. 

*The school received for many years a large part of its income 
from Unitarian sources. 



At Hampton. J870-J890 193 

We_mean to teach the precepts of Jesus Christ, accepting 
them as inspired and as recorded in the Bible." 

How truly he believed in sincere manifestations 
of religious feeling may be seen in the following 
letter written to a friend in 1883: 

"There is now in the school the deepest and most 
intense religious feeling I ever knew. We have instead 
of evening prayers daily meetings of about half an hour, 
in which the students in quick succession rise for a few 
words of experience or prayer. In all the five hundred 
who are present there is no excitement. It is like a 
Quaker meeting, so quiet is it. All speak in an under- 
tone. There is a sense of the divine presence in our 
midst, yet these four hundred wild, passionate Negro 
hearts, stirred to their depth, make no noise. A few 
sobs have been heard. The stillness is only broken by 
earnest, cheerful verses of hymns sung from time to 
time. The most touching of all are the few-months-ago- 
wild Indians who speak a few words in broken English 
or a prayer in the Dakota language. . . . Routine 
work and study go on. The school work is done in 
better temper and style than ever." 

A pupil writes of Armstrong's relations with 
his students: 

"I loved to go to evening prayers to listen to his 
talks and his prayers for us during the night and for the 
work he was doing. General Armstrong always spoke 
very fast, but when he prayed it was slow and deliberate. 
I did always enjoy his Sunday evening talks. I never 
once grew tired of hearing him. He would often say 



194 Samuel Chapman Armstrongp 

to those who were sleepy, 'Sleep on, I don't mind; you 
need plenty of sleep. I will talk to those awake.' 
When the hour came to dismiss us, he would rouse us by 
having us sing a very lively song." 

He felt the importance of keeping close relations 
with the graduates and ex-students of the Hampton 
school, in order that they might retain and be 
helped by the impressions received at Hampton. 
He said: 

"Hampton is a school of civilization meant to bear 
directly as a directive, inspiring force on these two 
races, not only through those whom it sends out, but 
indirectly by its influence on other institutions for 
these races which to some degree look to it for 
example and lessons." 

He regarded these graduate workers as young 
lieutenants in the field, fighting their first fight in 
command of troops: 

"There is a certain spirit of conquest in this work 
that I like. We have lots of strong places to take and 
we have the force to do it. To be bold and honest and 
work the darkey into shape and keep the white man in 
good humor is not very easy, but it can be done." 

Many of his epigrammatic remarks remained 
firmly fixed in their minds. Years after his death, 
the students at Hampton sometimes held an evening 
of quotations from his words, and many recalled 
them with great exactness. One writes: 



At Hampton. J 870-1 890 195 

"I shall always remember his saying, 'Help your 
people by giving them what has been given to you.' 
'Doing what can't be done is the glory of living.'" 

This attitude of cheerful optimism was the only 
one which could have roused the Negro to effort and 
self-respect. General Armstrong never spoke much 
of heredity, but always of the power of surroundings. 

"Success is not a matter of conditions, but rather 
of predestinations," he said; "not but what heredity 
is a power in life, but that it is secondary decidedly to 
the surroundings of a man. This fact is not appreciated 
as it should be." 

This hopeful tone pervaded every phase of Arm- 
strong's thought. "Hopeless ones are only grave- 
diggers for themselves and the rest." He once 
sprang up at a meeting at Lake Mohonk, New York, 
when an objection was made that a certain course' 
approved by him was "impossible." "What are 
Christians put into the world for but to do the 
impossible in the strength of God?" he exclaimed. 
This sentiment he commonly expressed in the 
following story — for feeling and fun played twin 
parts in his conversation: 

" Once there was a woodchuck. . . . Now, wood- 
chucks can't climb trees. Well, this woodchuck was 
chased by a dog and came to a tree. He knew that if 
he could get up this tree the dog could not catch him. 
Now, woodchucks can't climb trees, but he had to, so 
he did." 



196 Samuel Chapman Afmstrongf 

Increasingly up to 1878, the year of the death of 
his wife, to a somewhat less extent after that date, 
General Armstrong was the center of the social life 
at the Hampton school. The institution formed a 
curious little isolated community, with its four or 
five himdred blacks, its group of Indians, and 
dominant circle of whites, mostly women. Sufficient 
in itself socially this circle had to be, for there was 
no social life open to it outside of its own limits. 
When work was over, General Armstrong was the 
first to propose boating or driving excursions, 
picnics, and expeditions of all kinds, as if he had 
nothing else to attend to. 

"I remember," writes a friend, "however late in the 
evening it was, he would be at our doorsteps and full 
of some plan, no matter what trouble to himself was 
involved. Once we took the boat to Yorktown early 
in the morning. He was desirous of getting up an all- 
night excursion, and was ready to send blankets and 
mattresses anywhere." 

The old "brick thing" of a house, the mansion 
house of the Wood farm, to which he referred in a 
letter written in 1868, was gradually made over into 
an attractive and unique home. In the rear of the 
solid brick and stucco of the original structure, 
garlanded with ivies and honeysuckle and opening 
its ample rooms in generous hospitality, was a 
series of heterogeneous wooden additions consecrated 
to various and ever-changing uses ; at one time, when 
the usual recitation building had been burned, the 




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At Hampton. J870-J890 197 

entire house became a study-hall, with blackboards 
perched in the parlors and bulletins posted in the 
corridors. General Armstrong's favorite room was 
a little bay-windowed study, where, surrounded by 
the books of his choice and pictures of his Hawaiian 
home, he found occasional rest. Sometimes, when 
elm and honeysuckle were in leaf and flower beside 
the water, the old house swarmed with Commence- 
ment guests, who sipped lemonade on its piazza and 
perhaps looked curiously at the shabby exterior, 
with its discolored walls and odd climax in the 
shape of a half-crumbling greenhouse at one end. 
One said: "Everything seems to be in good repair 
but the General's house." In 1886 a sum was 
reluctantly accepted by Armstrong for the rehabili- 
tation of it. He never thought of a house except 
as a shelter from the weather, where you could 
meet your friends and where any one who needed 
it could find shelter and hospitality. 

During the brief hours spent at home he was often 
silent and absorbed, and anything that was un- 
pleasant or exciting troubled him, especially dis- 
cussion, or "debating," as he called it. Music was 
a great delight to him in its simpler forms, becoming 
fatiguing when more complex. He played a little 
on the flute, but never having time to practise upon 
it, strove vainly thus to express his musical aspira- 
tions. His taste for drawing, which might with train- 
ing have developed into a real pleasure and resource 
to him, was used only in comic illustrations in letters 



198 Samuel Chapman Atmstrong' 

to his children. Reading was the only resource to 
which in his home life, with its slight opportunities 
for relaxation, he could turn. As evening drew on 
he loved to ask a few friends to his house, where, 
seated in his old green- velvet arm-chair, he would 
read in his dramatic way some poems of Browning, 
"Lord Clive," or "Martin Relph," or perhaps a 
Latin ode or hymn — "Dies Irae" was a favorite; 
perhaps some simple poem of nature, as Bryant's 
"Green River." Browning was during his latter 
years his prime favorite among poets. 

He was a great reader, and his table was heaped 
with English and American books and magazines 
bearing on the Negro, on Indian education or the 
general aspect of some question of humanitarian 
science ; a book of travel or exploration, like Stanley's 
"Darkest Africa," interested and, he said, helped 
him, because it was the picture of a man overcoming 
difficulties. He deeplv ^njoyed Hughes's "Life of 
Livingstone," partly for the same reason, partly 
because it shed light on the home and habits of the 
Negro race in Africa. 

He had no interest in the detail of what is 
commonly called "science," but was glad to 
know of anything that promised relief or benefit 
to man. It was a great grief to him that 
he could find no time for general literary and 
classical culture. "Philanthropy is the thief of 
time," he used to say. As early as 1870, in a letter 
to his wife, he said: 



At Hampton. J870-J890 199 

" I hope when I go to you to do a good deal of reading 
and freshen up myself somewhat in the classics; this 
rusting out is dreadful; it is wearing out. I wish I could 
lay aside human nature as one does a cloak and gently 
browse awhile in green pastures." 

But his interest in all matters pertaining to the 
welfare of man reached beyond the limit which his 
brief leisure for reading allowed. He was a subscriber 
for years to the National Divorce Reform League, 
was interested in the industrial problems of India, 
in the civilization of Africa, and most of all in 
prison reform. He writes: 

"If I shall ever have work or influence in the South 
for anything beyond schools, it shall be for prison 
reform. That has been in my thought for years. I 
long for a chance to take hold, but it will all come out 
all right." 

His home might have been devoid of lightness 
but that it was illuminated by a perennial love of 
fun, a love of fim which introduced the "Presby- 
terian war-dance" and "puss in the comer" among 
the very elect. The "war-dance" was a "grand 
right and left" danced to the singing of " Auld Lang 
Syne" and gradually growing faster and faster till 
every one was too breathless to sing. How many 
there are who can recall the gray-haired leader 
rushing the dancers on and calling " Faster ! Faster ! " 
or scampering across the room or lawn chased by 
some small boy whose young legs perforce gained 



200 Samuel Chapman Atmstrong 

the race. He liked to tell his children, when an 
organ-grinder went by with his monkey, that the 
monkey hired the organ-grinder by the month to 
carry him roimd and play for him, and that you 
could tell it must be so, because the man walked in 
the dust and heat and carried the monkey sitting 
with his legs crossed, and handsomely dressed at 
ease on top of the organ. An eclipse of the sun 
which he saw in New York he describes as follows : 

"Did I mention the eclipse? It passed off creditably 
as seen through a piece of smoked glass which I bought 
of a boy in the streets for ten cents. It amounted to 
this, that the sun charged ten cents for every spectator 
and must have made a good deal of money out of it, 
unless the wretches who sold the glass failed to 'go 
snacks' with his Imperial Majesty the sun. If so, there 
will not be another eclipse soon." 

The confiding belief of his little girls in these 
fables was a source of great delight to him. Indeed, 
his relation with them was for many years the 
greatest pleasure of his lonely life. While they were 
still small girls he wrote constantly to them, 
often in a series of story-letters in which cats, 
dogs, missionaries and good and bad boys and girls 
figure in delightful profusion, and in which the good 
are rewarded and the wicked punished with a fidelity 
peculiar to fiction. 

Fortunately for the permanence of his influence 
on young colored men and women, he did not 



At Hampton. J 870- J 890 201 

forget that they were but boys and girls and must 
have healthy fun and recreation as much as his own 
children : 

"A social influence over them is all-important, I 
think. Whatever you do, get hold of their amusements; 
supply something that will delight them. I am con- 
vinced of the necessity of organizing pleasure as well as 
religion in order to sustain Christian morality. Sur- 
rounding influences are, on the human side, the great 
uplifting power. The power of it is marvelous, es- 
pecially on the moral character. Anything short of 
personal knowledge of and influence over them 
amounts to little. . . . Here once in a while we 
play games, teachers always present; the whole thing 
kept well in hand, limited to an hour. The whole 
matter is talked frankly and freely over with students, 
and very bright, happy times through ten years' ex- 
perience shows it to be wise for us. . . . Efforts 
on the social side may seem discouraging, but touch 
and sympathy with natives * must be kept up, if it is 
hard work. It will pay when trouble comes." 

One part of his house was built in his last years 
for the express purpose of recreation, both of pupils 
and of teachers. He did not live to organize his 
favorite games there, but the room, under the 
name of the recreation room, remains as a reminder of 
his insistence upon the importance of healthy play 
for all. 

His teachers discussed frankly with him plans for 
the growth of the school. In these discussions he 

* Spoken of Hawaiians, but applied equally to Negroes. 



202 SamocI Chapman Armsttong 

was singularly open to suggestion, and never seemed 
to regard the school as his own, but rather as a trust 
which he held for the nation. Every new idea he 
listened to with eagerness and incorporated in his 
work if there was any good in it. It was his theory 
that the institution was a kind of experiment 
station where the worth of various theories could be 
proved. It is an instance of his amenableness to 
suggestion that he often invited a free written 
expression of opinion from subordinates in regard 
to their departments, though keeping his own 
counsel in regard to the acceptance of advice : 

"I have seldom followed advice implicitly, which is 
sometimes the best and sometimes the worst thing in 
the world, according to the good sense of the giver, but 
it has been of unspeakable value as stimulating thought 
and has led to much change of direction ; one ' caroms ' 
on it, as one billiard ball does on another." * 

It will readily be seen that much of his success in 
dealing with an impressionable race like the Negro 
lay in his selection of assistants. He believed that 
most of the teachers engaged in preparing pupils 
for teaching in the public schools should be women, 
as he thought their influence over the blacks of a 
more refining nature than that of men, so that for 
many years most of his assistants were women. 
One who was closely and for a long time associated 
with him writes: 

♦Address at Hawaiian Islands, 1891. 



At Hampton. W0-tZ90 203 

"General Armstrong had strong convictions in regard 
to 'culture' training for teachers; for this reason he 
rather leaned toward college-trained teachers, or women 

of broad culture coming from families like the B s 

[a well-known family of inherited intellectual ability]. 
He felt that the lack of knowledge in theory and practice 
which these teachers often show was offset by their 
superior mental culture. He was often heard to say 
that such students as those at Hampton needed to be 
surrounded by ladies and gentlemen of culture ; that the 
Negro was quick to recognize ' de quality.' " 

In his eagerness to help the unfortunate wherever 
they were he sometimes invited persons in the con- 
dition known as "down on their luck" to become 
teachers at Hampton, expecting, it would seem, 
that as the inspiration from contact with so great 
a cause came upon them, the faults which had 
brought them to this condition would be remedied. 
One or two of these persons were usually to be found 
at Hampton occupied in some branch of work 
devised especially for them, oddly incongruous 
elements, but not disloyal to the genuine kindness 
which brought them there. From his earliest to his 
last days Armstrong's sun rose alike upon the evil 
and the good; on the whole, however, he gathered 
together a strong body of teachers, remarkably suc- 
cessful in working together. 

'* In our associated life at Hampton, of all things we 
wish charity and consideration for each other. Hasty 
and sharp expressions when we differ are most mis- 



204 Samuel Chapman Armstfong 

chievous; good temperament is the great thing to 
secure unity and a never-broken mutual cooperation in 
making our work as strong and perfect as possible." 

Having in mind always, like another great 
teacher, Thomas Arnold, that education which is 
not moral and spiritual is worse than no education, 
he yet bound his teachers to no creed. Speaking 
of one's coming, he said: 

"She need not be 'orthodox,' but simply loyal to the 
school as it is and do the best she can. A fine, well- 
developed personality, along with skill in teaching, 
makes, I think, an ideal teacner, but they do not often 
go together." 

He eagerly seized on people whom he thought 
adapted to Hampton, and drew them there often 
against pressure from their homes, or even against 
their own previous inclination; for as he said, "I 
want people whom everybody else wants." When 
they were there he tried to make them happy, encour- 
aging any reasonable taste or hobby in them, or 
urging them to develop new lines of work at Hamp- 
ton ; for he valued the faculty of originality in sub- 
ordinates as a sign of potential influence and innate 
power. Yet, although intending to allow full scope 
for the individuality of each teacher, he was unable 
to avoid impressing his own marked characteristics 
upon them to some extent; a fact to which is due 
largely the impression of unity between the man 
and his work which was made on every visitor. 



At Hampton. J870-J890 205 

His ideal of the scope of a teacher's work was 
high: 

"The country and people must be studied by them as 
none of us are able to do. Only by touching the people 
he is working for can a teacher get the true range and 
do his best work." 

He believed that the study of man, the conditions 
of civilization, of history and the laws of develop- 
ment were necessary in order to make a successful 
teacher of the Negro and Indian races. 

"Many teachers seem to me," he said, "to have 
disproportionate ideas of the forces that make up man. 
. . . There is plenty of study of methods, not enough 
of study of men or of the problems of life." 

He considered the gain to the teacher to be equal 
to the gain to the pupil at Hampton : 

"We are forced to do work that by bringing us more 
directly into the line of God's providence gives us a 
drill that is as good as any that is given to our students." 

He desired that no teacher should come to 
Hampton unless filled with a spirit of helpfulness to 
the unfortunate. In a letter urging one to accept 
an offer of a teacher's place there he says: 

" You well-bom, from good homes, have a great advan- 
tage over these children of darkness and misfortune. 
These pupils are in earnest and are to be teachers and 



2o6 Samoel Chapman Atmstfong 

leaders, and in putting your mark on them you are 
putting it on many others." 

The labor system first recognized by General 
Armstrong as the distinguishing mark of the 
Hampton school assumed more and more impor- 
tance as the years went by. The circumstances of 
its earliest years and the final and permanent out- 
come of General Armstrong's work for the principle 
of combined manual labor and mental work are 
best told by Booker T. Washington:* 

"When General Armstrong undertook to introduce 
industrial education at Hampton, the whole subject 
was new, not only to the Negro, but to northern and 
southern white people. The general impression which 
prevailed among a large number of colored people, 
especially those who lived in cities in the North and 
who had received some advantages of education, was 
that industrial education was something which was 
meant to retain the Negro in a kind of slavery to limit 
his sphere of activity. Many of the colored people 
felt, also, that it was a kind of education that was to 
be applied to the colored people only. Added to this 
difficulty was another. The southern white people as 
a rule approved of industrial education. This made 
the colored people all the more suspicious of its value 
and object. They applied in a measure the same rule 
to this that they applied to politics in the early years of 
freedom. If a southern white man favored a certain 

♦Principal of Tuskegee Institute, Tuskegee, Alabama, who 
at Hampton Institute in its earlier years received the baptism 
of General Armstrong's spirit and has since his graduation 
carried on a similar work. 



At Hampton. ^870-J890 207 

political measure, the colored people usually opposed 
it. Many felt that if industrial education was a good 
thing for the Negro the southern white man would 
not favor it. 

"For a number of years after the work was started 
at Hampton it was misunderstood in the directions to 
which I have referred, as well as in many others which 
I shall not take the time to name. General Armstrong, 
however, went on calmly pursuing the ends that he had 
in view, seldom stopping to explain himself or to be 
troubled by misrepresentations. He realized the value 
of what he had in mind, and felt sure that in the 
end the whole country would understand him and come 
around to his position, 

"As I have often heard him explain his theory of 
industrial education — both to me personally and to the 
school — when I was a student at Hampton, I think I 
might state his objects briefly as follows: 

"First. He was anxious to give the colored people 
an idea of the dignity, the beauty and civilizing power 
of intelligent labor with the hand. He was conscious 
of the fact that he was dealing with a race that had 
little necessity to labor in its native land before coming 
to America, and after coming to this country was forced 
to labor for two hundred and fifty years under circum- 
stances that were not calculated to make the race fond 
of hard work. 

"Second. It was his object to teach the Negro to 
lift labor out of drudgery and toil by putting thought 
and skill into it. 

"Third. He saw that through the medium of indus- 
trial education he could bring the two races in the 
South into closer relations with each other. He knew 
that in other matters there were differences which it 
would take years to change, but he knew that indus- 



2o8 Samuel Chapman Afmstfong 

trially the interests of the two races were identical in 
the South, and that as soon as he could prove to a south- 
ern white man that an educated skilled Negro workman 
was of more value to the community than an ignorant, 
shiftless one, the southern white man would take 
an interest in the education of the black boy. 

"Fourth. Through the industrial system at the 
Hampton Institute it was his object to give the students 
an opportunity to work out a portion of their boarding 
expenses. In this way he meant to prevent the school 
becoming a hothouse for producing students with no 
power of self-help or independence. I have often heard 
him say that the mere effort which the student put forth 
through the industries at Hampton to help himself was 
of the greatest value to the student, whether the labor 
itself was of very much value or not. In a word, he 
meant to use the industries as a means for building 
character — to teach that all forms of labor were hon- 
orable and all forms of idleness a disgrace. 

"The idea of industrial education, beginning for our 
people at Hampton, has gradually spread among them 
until I am safe in saying that it has permeated the 
whole race in every section of the country. There is 
not a State in the Union where there is any considerable 
proportion of our race whose influence counts for any- 
thing in which they are not interested in industrial 
education and are manifesting this interest by the 
establishment of a school or by other substantial helps. 
They now realize, as never before, that the education of 
the head, the heart and the hand must go together. 
That while we need classical and professional men, we 
need a still larger number trained along industrial lines. 

" Not only has General Armstrong's belief in industrial 
education spread among our people in the South, but 
its influence is felt in the West Indies and Africa and 



At Hampton, J870-J890 209 

other foreign countries, to such an extent that there are 
many calls coming from these countries for industrial 
education. 

"The work at the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial 
Institute is simply one of the results of the work of the 
Hampton Institute. There are a number of industrial 
schools, either small or large, in every State where there 
are any considerable number of our people. 

"Perhaps the most interesting thing in connection 
with the influence of General Armstrong is the rapid 
growth and spread of industrial education among the 
southern white people. For a number of years after 
the Harnpton Institute was started the southern white 
people gave no attention to the subject, and rather took 
for granted, I think, that it was something in which the 
Negroes only should receive training. But as they 
realized from year to year the rapid growth of industrial 
education among the colored people and the skill and 
intelligence which they were acquiring, southern white 
educators here and there began to make investigation 
and to inquire whether or not the same kind of educa- 
tion was not needed for the southern white boy and girl, 
and very carefully and modestly at first industries were 
introduced into a white school here and there. These 
schools, however, were not very popular among the white 
people at first, but the idea of industrial education 
among the southern white people has spread until at 
the present moment I think every southern State has 
one or more institutions established for this kind of 
training for white youths, and the industrial idea has 
become almost as popular among the white people as 
among the colored people. 

"I think I am not going too far when I make one other 
suggestion, and that is that the whole country owes 
General .A^rmstrong a debt not only for the rapid and 



2IO Samuel Chapman Atmstfongf 

permanent growth of industrial education among the 
colored people and white people of the South, but it is 
to him that all are indebted more than to any one man 
for the growth of the hand training in the northern and 
western States. It is seldom, in my opinion, that one 
individual has had the opportunity through a single 
idea to revolutionize the educational thought and 
activity of so large a proportion of the world as has 
been true of the founder of Hampton."* 

The idea referred to by Mr. Washington as held 
by the Negroes — namely, that industrial education 
tended to lower them in their own eyes and in the 
esteem of others — contains this germ of truth, that 
in the economic sense an education for labor alone, 
even for skilled labor, is a class education. Many 
Southerners no doubt acquiesced in the idea of indus- 
trial education for the Negroes, because they thought 
that to keep them artisans, mechanics and farmers 
was to keep them in a class by themselves, and a 
class separated from their own by a lack of culture 
and of common social meeting-ground. It was 
no wonder that the colored race distrusted 
Armstrong's scheme of combined labor and learning 
and that they sought the advantages of Hampton 
for many years more because of the intellectual 
than the manual training afforded there. 

General Armstrong, however, conceived of the 
value of labor in a different way ; he did not wish to 
make a labor caste, a social grade of hand-workers, 
although their skill and training should force 

* Written for this book. 



At Hampton. J870-J890 211 

respect for their race ; he simply saw that habits of 
labor constituted a great and the only conceivable 
moral force that would lift the average Negro from 
his attitude of indifference and slovenliness to one 
of earnest endeavor and industry. 

As the manual-training system worked itself out 
at Hampton, Armstrong held with an iron grip to his 
original idea, " Labor as a moral force, " and produc- 
tive labor,* because it taught the student more life 
if less trade. He was filled through and through 
with a deep sense that by hard work alone can any 
of us be saved — a sense based on many obscure 
foundations of observation and deduction. Away 
back in the comers of his mind were recollections 
of sundry wood-choppings and milkings carried on 
under protest by himself and his companions, and 
knowledge, too, of how his father and mother had 
spent their ambitious youth in work, the mother 
spinning by the fireside, the father doing chores at 
his home in Pennsylvania. It was the boys who 
faced and conquered hard physical jobs that became 
the men of endurance later. These half-defined 
thoughts did much to shape his policy toward the 
Negro. What builds character in one man builds 
it in another, he thought, and forthwith set about 
to imitate the old home training — ^hard work done 
for the sake of the product and rewarded by the 
satisfaction of accomplishment, as well as by more 

* That is, as opposed to the technical method which teaches 
principles alone and as a general rule destroys the product. 



212 Samttel Chapman Armstfong 

tangible benefits — ^but to better it by more instruc- 
tion than his parents ever got in doing their chores. 
Writing (in 1887) of the St. Louis Manual-Labor 
Training-School, he said: 

" The manual instruction is given on the Russian plan ; 
that is, men are taught to make those forms of wood 
and iron which enter into every article that can be made 
of these materials ; just as girls learn the piano by playing 
exercises and not tunes. . . . It is no experiment. 
It is the nearest to perfection of the fine methods of 
training head and hand together that I know of . . . . 
I only here remark that such a labor school belongs 
rather to a high civilization. The student's personal 
support is assured by the accumulated savings of edu- 
cated generations. There is nothing to do but to go 
directly at the special work in hand. At Hampton, 
for instance, and in like schools for like people, the bread 
and butter and clothes question is primary if not para- 
mount. They must have something to eat before they 
can be taught. So we pay them for their work, instead 
of, as in St. Louis, being paid for what work we give 
them. We must make not ideal articles, but things we 
can sell or eat, or it will be all up with us. In doing 
this our workmen learn much, not so thoroughly, nicely 
and quickly as by the Russian method, but perhaps 
better for the rougher life and experience of the South 
and West. A rounded character rather than mere 
technical skill is our point. The morale of the one is 
assumed ; in the other it is to be created. 

"They wish to make a specialist; we wish to make a 
self-reliant man. They chisel daintily away at one 
who is 'heir of all the ages,' to make him a little more 
perfect. We hew from the raw material men who have 



At Hampton. I870-I890 213 

come out of deep darkness and wrong, without inherit- 
ance but of savage nature, the best product we can, and 
care as much to infuse it with a spiritual Hfe and divine 
energy as with knowledge of the saw, plane and hoe. 
Such work is full of inspiration. It drags only because 
few appreciate the tremendous drain on the skill and 
resources required. . . . There must be a differ- 
ence in the educational methods for the races in our 
country that are a thousand years behind the whites 
in the line of development." 

He writes in 1885: 

" Eventually, special training should be given to 
special students. It is only a question of time and 
money when we shall have a technical department here 
equal to any in the northern cities. It is precisely in 
the line of our development. Constant work for wages 
and discipline is the foundation of our industrial and 
academic system. Special class-training in mechanical 
principles for the higher walks of labor should be its 
completion. , . . We aim to train teachers for 
teaching schools in the South, taking the best material 
from our industrial departments." 

As the Negro advanced from what Armstrong 
called "the dead level of slavery" into a state of 
division into classes, the originally simple system 
in vogue at Hampton became more complex. The 
coming of the Indians, too, made necessary chaiTges 
in the industrial departments that were productive 
of widespread results. Indeed, the coming of the 
Indians marked a distinct step in the advance of 
the Hampton school. Next to the tour of the 



214 Samuel Chapman Armstrong 

Jubilee Singers, it brought the school into wider 
prominence than any event.* The War Department 
undertook the tuition charges of these new pupils, 
but General Armstrong assumed the other expenses. 
The Indians, unlike the Negroes, were not inured 
to work, but held it in lofty contempt, an attitude 
General Armstrong thought as fatal to their devel- 
opment as the laziness of the Negro. He quotes 
in a report, with approval, the words of Secretary- 
Teller : 

"The Indian question will never be settled till you 
make the Indian blister his hands. No people ever 
emerged from barbarism that did not emerge through 
labor." 

He himself said on this subject: 

"The Indian's endowment of land and his right to 
rations is like a millstone around his neck, for only when 
it is work or starve will the average man work." f 

So, although the Government paid the bills, the 
red man had to go to work; and his work, directed 
toward trade-learning rather than toward a finished 
product, gave an impetus to technical training 
throughout the school. 

Many regarded the introduction of the Indians 

♦The Indians first came in 1878, brought by Capt. R. H. Pratt, 
then an officer of the regular army in charge of Indian prisoners 
at St. Augustine, Florida. Seeing their deplorable condition, 
he wrote Armstrong for permission for seventeen of them to enter 
the institute. 

fReferring to agency system. Report of 1887. 



At Hampton, J 870-1 890 215 

as a very doubtful experiment. The mingling of 
races in close companionship and the added financial 
needs the Indians would bring contained possibilities 
of trouble. But on the whole it proved to be a wise 
step and justified Armstrong's confidence in the 
Hampton school. The new race was assimilated 
and became an element of strength. No serious 
trouble occurred between the races, and the effect 
on Negroes and Indians alike was to broaden their 
conceptions of man and duty. The coming of the 
Indians also brought the institute into closer 
relations with its southern neighbors, who had a 
sympathy with the Indian which they could not 
summon for the Negro. From this time General 
Armstrong was able to rely confidently upon some 
of his neighbors for support in his work. 

Not upon all, however. The Hampton Institute 
was not free from those attacks upon its work and 
character which usually attend successful enterprises. 
In 1886 a complaint was made by some persons 
living in the vicinity of the school that they were 
oppressed by its industrial competition. General 
Armstrong personally urged at Richmond the 
appointment of an investigating committee, which 
was asked for by the complainants, and gave every 
opportunity to get at the truth. The investigation 
ended in a hearty endorsement of the Institute. 
General Armstrong never allowed this attack to 
influence his belief in the kindliness of his neighbors, 
saying publicly that "the Hampton Institute was 



2i6 Samttel Chapman Atmstfongf 

generously recognized and appreciated, and that 
the investigation, so far from doing harm, had 
done much good." 

Two years later more serious charges were made 
against General Armstrong and his work for the 
Indians. These attacks foilowed soon after his par- 
tial recovery from a severe illness in 1886, continued 
for months in the form of oft-repeated newspaper 
charges, disproved only to be repeated again, and 
wore greatly upon him. 

His attitude toward all these attacks was char- 
acteristic. 

"Our point," he wrote, "is not to clear ourselves, 
but to bring out the whole truth. None of us are too 
good for an investigation. . . . Any assumption 
of correctness is intolerable. I wish always bottom 
facts. In missionary work especially the whole truth 
should always be told." 

Instead of making formal defense of the insti- 
tution, he requested a committee of investigation 
to be sent from Washington, and invited men 
whose opinion carried local weight to go over the 
ground fully and freely with him. 

"This is the point of issue," he wrote; "not to hurrah 
for Hampton, but to see that things are fairly looked 
into." 

A few recommendations were made by the com- 
mittee and were promptly carried out. 



At Hampton. J 870- J 890 217 

So as an experiment of which the details must 
be worked out from day to day and which was 
liable to mistakes and misconstruction, General 
Armstrong's work grew, 

"Though every forward step has oeen r struggle," 
he wrote in 1890, "the school has been a growth, deep- 
rooted and healthy. We are here not merely to educate 
students, but to make men and women out of individ- 
uals belonging to the down-trodden and despised races; 
to make of them not accomplished scholars, but to build 
up character and manhood; to fit the best among them 
to become teachers and apply the best educational 
methods, for the work is a rounded one, touching 
the whole circle of life and demanding the best energies 
of those who take it up. In God's providence it has 
been especially given to this nation as a work to be 
done, and to be done now, not only for reasons of 
honor and humanity, but from the lower motives of 
self-preservation, for our own safety as much as for 
the good of those who are entreating us for help." 



CHAPTER VIII 
In the North. 1870- 1890 

Not more than half of this period of twenty 
years was spent at Hampton. To organize, stim- 
ulate and oversee the growing institution would 
seem to be work enough for one man; but since 
the very existence of Hampton depended on money, 
and money must be sought where it could be found. 
General Armstrong became an equally familiar 
figure in the streets of Boston and on the shell 
roads of Hampton. Two-thirds of his immense 
energies were spent in getting money to carry out 
the ideas that his brain was continually evolving — 
money in amounts generally so inadequate to his 
needs as to render necessary a constant adjustment 
of ends to means, modifications of his ideals within 
the bounds of what he could do with the money he 
had — a limitation ever present with the idealist who 
not only dreams but does. 

In his early trips to the North he had to deal 
with a public weary with the story of southern 
outrages. 

" I am getting up meetings in the various cities of 
eastern Massachusetts," he wrote to a brother in 1870. 

218 



In the North. J 870- J 890 219 

"People here have gotten tired of the Negro question, 
and wind and tide are against me. It is fearful to 
throw oneself against the popular current, and it is 
the most exhausting thing I ever tried. Northern 
people are so busy that they don't know what is the 
real state of things at the South. The story of 
Ku-Klux and blood is so familiar that no one 
notices it." 

These early appeals were made at a time when 
business was in the process of recuperation after 
the stress of war time and when charitable people 
were besieged for aid to those left helpless by 
bereavement or disablement ; moreover, the capabil- 
ities of the Negro race were distrusted at this time, 
when the excesses of the reconstruction period 
were still of recent occurrence ; nor were people gen- 
erally disposed to look with favor on a theory that 
at Oberlin and kindred schools had already resulted 
unsuccessfully,* the theory of the mingling of mental 
with manual work. They failed to see what Arm- 
strong had already clearly perceived, that, rightly 
applied, the theory of education by training the 
hand was in a short timie to affect education radically 
throughout America; that it would at length take 
the place of all other methods in the training of 
undeveloped races. 

He hoped that his appeals might in a few years 
bring an answer adequate to the needs of the Negro, 
but money came slowly. 

He returned again and again to his home at 

*See page 158, 



2 20 Samtiel Chapman Afmstrong 

Hampton, between his money-raising "campaigns," 
as he called them, hoping to be able to rest and 
organize his work there, and to enjoy his peaceful 
home life and the society of the little family growing 
up by his side. He soon saw, however, that if the 
school was to continue its growth there was to be 
no end to this effort while he lived, and he resigned 
with sorrow this pleasant anticipation. His early 
hope he expressed in a letter to his mother, 
written August, 1870: 

"Just as soon as the building, Academic Hall, the 
first large building on the grounds, is done, I must pitch 
in for an endowment of $200,000; that is the final 
struggle. It will cost me terribly; a three years' cam- 
paign of the hardest kind. After it I must take a rest 
of several months if I can afford it. This is my plan: 
get the endowment, then go home again. Oh, for a 
sight of the cocoanut trees!" 

This particular plan of a three years' campaign 
was never carried out; after each stay at Hampton 
following a northern trip new needs would press 
with the opening of the school term, expenses 
incidental to growth would run over income, and 
he would be forced to leave home again for a trip to 
the North. 

In a letter to his mother he thus describes an 
early tour: 

"I was told I must expect little or nothing, but I 
had to beg. I was forced to get money to pay the 



In the Notth. J870-J890 221 

pressing way of the school or let it go to the wall, and at 
it I went with all my might and haven't had a day's 
rest for two months. It is hard — this begging; it takes 
all one's nervous and physical strength, even when 
people are kind and polite, as they generally are. It is 
never and never can be easy, and I have always to use 
all my strength, fire every gun in order to bring to the 
hurried, worried business men that powerful influence 
that alone can secure money in a place like Boston, 
where for every dollar that even the richest are able to 
give there are ten chances to put it to good use and 
twenty demands for it from one source or another. It 
is amazing how hard is the pressure of appeal and yet 
how polite and good-natured most people are, how 
patiently they listen and how many give up their last 
spare dollar not needed for personal comfort, Boston 
has been educated to giving and gives splendidly. But 
thousands are turned away — few succeed, many fail 
who try for money, just as in the business world. In all 
this howling appeal and fearful competition of charities 
I have been making the best fight I could — watching 
every chance, following up every chance, finding 
out new people, making new friends to the cause, 
talking in houses and in churches, at parties and at 
dinner tables, in season and out of season, and on the 
whole I have done well. ... I am received always 
in the pleas antest way by the best people and have 
made a great many strong friends. Am rushing 
about all the time and necessity is after me sharp. 
. . . Am going to drive things while there's any 
life in me. I am well and think I can stand it ; success 
is the best medicine and will cure me. ... I 
have raised several thousand dollars, and am con- 
sidered to have had remarkable success, considering 
the times." 



i22 Samuel Chapman Armsttong 

There was at the time of these first trips in the 
North a group of persons in and about Boston who 
had been prominent in war and sanitary commis- 
sion affairs — men and women of mature age, social 
position and comfortable incomes. Most of this 
group were women, the men of their generation 
being deeply engrossed in affairs or disabled or 
killed in the war. Such names as Quincy, Wiggles- 
worth, Cooper, Paine, Loring, Bowditch, Putnam, 
Fields, Claflin, Hemenway and Parkman suggest 
this group of public-spirited citizens, who not only 
gave their interest and money to help the cause, 
but their personal friendship. 

This friendship began, in many cases, in November, 
187 1, when Mrs. Augustus Hemenway asked General 
Armstrong and his young wife and baby to visit 
her in Boston. Under her social guardianship 
General and Mrs. Armstrong heard good music 
and drama and widened greatly their circle of 
acquaintance. 

A cordial personal recognition was an agreeable 
relief from the strain of debt and financial responsi- 
bility that even now bore him down with a crushing 
weight. It was to prove not only a pleasant inci- 
dent in his career, but an event of vital importance 
to his work, for a social introduction proved to be 
the very means whereby he was able to approach 
and to know charitable Boston. He saw that here 
was an opportunity to meet the people, many of 
whom had been friends to the rights of the Neero 



In the North. J 870- J 890 223 

when abolitionism was unfashionable and who were 
the most ready of all in the North to help and under- 
stand his work. For their part, they saw in the 
freshness and vigor of the man, in his entire absence 
of selfish ambition and in his notable war record 
promise of future success. They were attracted 
by his delight in working for the right — his youth- 
ful buoyancy of outlook joined to intense moral 
earnestness, qualities that spoke of staying power 
and effectiveness. The man who could say, "Isn't 
it jolly to be a mounted soldier in the service of 
the Lord?" would never desert his colors. Later 
they became convinced of the wisdom of his plans, 
and from that time on this group of people gave 
him hearty social and moral backing and financial 
support in general, though the great fortunes with 
which universities are founded were not theirs 
to give. 

That he succeeded early in persuading men and 
women of moral influence to lend their support 
to his plans is shown by the fact that on January 
27, 1870, his first public meeting, held in Music 
Hall, Boston, under the auspices of the Hawaiian 
Club of Boston, through his old and intimate friend 
General J. F. B. Marshall, was presided over by 
Governor Claflin, and attended by many of the 
philanthropic people of Boston. This meeting 
marked the beginning of a two months' campaign 
which was the first of a series that extended over a 
period of twenty years. 



2 24 Samuel Chapman Aimstfongf 

It is a striking comment on these times, as General 
Armstrong noted, that on the very night when 
this meeting was held which marked the organiza- 
tion of Hampton's work in New England, all that 
was left of the old Abolition Society met to lay 
down its arms and give up its organization, resolv- 
ing that nothing remained for it to do. "It failed 
to see," as General Armstrong says, "that every- 
thing remained. Their work was just beginning 
when slavery was abolished." 

It must not be imagined that he confined himself 
to making friends among the naturally philan- 
thropic and the well-to-do classes. He desired 
from the beginning and throughout his life that 
his work should be the work of the people, and 
such to a peculiar extent it was. A glance at the 
record of gifts to Hampton for this period of twenty 
years shows that the majority of the individual 
gifts range from ten to fifty dollars. Poor country 
churches and religious societies sent small sums 
yearly; many persons gave sparingly, as they could 
afford it, out of moderate incomes; church fairs 
and Sunday-schools sent small amounts from time 
to time. It was the custom in many New England 
churches to take up a quarterly or yearly collec- 
tion for Hampton, grouping it with their contribu- 
tions to foreign missions or the evangelization of 
the new West. Hampton took its place in New 
England as a charity of recognized worth. Clubs or 
committees were organized which pledged them- 



In the North. J870-J890 225 

selves to send a fixed sum yearly; a scholarship 
or a small sum of money which paid the tuition of 
one student for one year and established a personal 
relation between giver and recipient was a favorite 
mode of giving. From such sources about one-half 
of the income of Hampton was derived for twenty 
years. 

Armstrong's greatest single effort to enlist public 
interest was the tour of the Hampton Jubilee 
Singers, beginning in February, 1872, and lasting 
until June, 1875, The immediate occasion for it 
was the pressing need first felt in the fall of 1871 
for better accommodations for girls ; but as early as 
this year General Armstrong felt the need of a 
permanent endowment fund, something that would 
yield a regular interest and leave him more time 
for improving the school itself. The singers started 
on their long tour hoping to raise a sum of at least 
$200,000 for this purpose. 

Many obstacles lay before them : the Fisk Jubilee 
Singers, aided by the influence of the American 
Missionary Association, had just finished their 
series of concerts in the North; it was doubtful 
whether the enthusiasm they had aroused could 
be awakened so soon again by a Negro chorus. 
Speculators assuming the name of jubilee singers 
were prejudicing people against all such companies ; 
the expense of the trip would be great ; many thought 
that it would demoralize the student singers and 
thus react for evil on the school. But Armstrong 



2 26 Samuel Chapman Armstrong 

had made up his mind to raise the needed $200,000, 
and relied on the help of friends in the North and 
on the charm of that music which, once heard, draws 
the hearer again to listen to its wild and plaintive 
tones. 

February 13, 1872, the party started. General 
Armstrong regarded the duration of the tour as 
indefinite, expecting to extend it to England and 
California if it was successful. The party traveled 
by day and gave their concerts generally in the 
evening, taking their school-books with them and 
studying persistently while on train or boat in order 
to keep up with their classes. Audiences, indeed, 
were not so large as those that gathered to listen to 
the Fisk singers, nor were the sums of money taken 
in as great. At the close of the first year $10,000 
was sent back to Hampton as net proceeds. The 
second year was less directly profitable, owing to 
the financial panic of 1874 and 1875, but much in- 
terest was excited. Over 7,000 copies of the book, 
"Hampton and Its Students," were sold, and a gift 
of $10,000 was made for the completion of a chapel 
for general gatherings. Mrs. Augustus Hemenway 
and Mrs. S. T. Hooper, of Boston, were present 
at many of the concerts, lent their valuable 
influence and prestige to the undertaking, and 
aided in many ways to reduce expenses and excite 
enthusiasm. The singers gave 500 concerts, 
traveled over eighteen States, and visited Canada. 

The tour of the singers did little to start an 



In the Nofth. J870-J890 227 

endowment fund, but as an advertisement it was 
invaluable, and in no other way could information 
about Hampton have been so widely diffused; in 
no other way could the acquaintance of Armstrong 
have been enlarged so rapidly. It was the first 
step in the larger life of the Hampton school. It 
was the first presentation of its claim upon the 
whole country for support. After this tour General 
Armstrong was no longer simply the principal 
of a struggling Negro school in Virginia ; he became 
a public man with a scope of influence which 
increased yearly until it became national. 

Already in the midst of the trip he perceived the 
scope of his work, its needs, its future and its sure 
support, and wrote to the editor of a New Bedford 
(Massachusetts) newspaper : 

" I enclose a circular to which you may, I hope, call 
attention, as it refers to a very important movement 
and one which would probably interest your readers. 
You will hear of it anyhow, and I write to anticipate 
rum.or and, if possible, prevent unpleasant impressions 
liable to be formed from my going into such an enter- 
prise. 

"The truth is, we have, as Lincoln used to say of the 
war, a 'big job' on our hands. It's no use to whine 
about the great demand for means to lift up the Negro 
race. The work is not done; it is given us as a nation 
to do. It is the duty of no section, but of every one. 
Practically those who care for it, wherever they live, 
do and will help; those who don't care will not. The 
helpers are comparatively few. The money contributed 



228 Samuel Chapman Atmstrong; 

has been in small sums — rarely has a large amount been 
given. But aggressive, powerful institutions that make 
their impress upon the populations need large endow- 
ments and extensive buildings, so that students from all 
quarters can be massed together, instructed, inspired 
with vital truth, and sent out as builders of a better 
civilization. Hampton aims to do the Negro race a 
real good by supplying a host of thoughtful, trained, 
practical teachers, who have been drilled not only in 
books, but in shops and on the farm, in the kitchen 
and in the sewing-room. These will teach not only 
spelling and arithmetic, but the more important lessons 
of respect for labor, and they will impart of their 
own essential manhood and womanhood to those whom 
they teach. The Negro has been taught to work, not 
to despise it; he has the habits of labor, but no enthusi- 
asm for it ; he is satisfied with his job if only his employer 
is. The true laborer may not love hard work, but he 
does his work well for the sake of doing it well and 
takes pride in it. 

"We wish to spread broadcast right ideas of life and 
labor; to unite morality and religion in the holy tie 
that binds them and that is not recognized here: for 
the divorce is complete. 

" Hundreds of teachers, apostles of a true Christianity 
and civihzation, are needed. We are compelled con- 
stantly to say to applications from all parts of Virginia, 
'We cannot send you any more teachers.' Four times 
as many as we can supply are needed now, and school- 
houses are empty and thousands untaught for want of 
them. Yet we have been forced, for want of room, 
to reject this year thirty-five young men and women 
who were eager to come and fit themselves to teach. 
We have encamped thirty in old army tents in the open 
field, and they have been for months in terrible freezing 



In the North. J870-J890 229 

weather and exposed to howling winds. But not a 
murmur. They'll stand it a good while yet — all this 
and all next winter if necessary. We expect to have 
seventy or eighty men under canvas next year. But 
we cannot put women in tents. We have planned a 
large dormitory, including sixty-eight girls' rooms, a 
chapel, sewing-room, etc., capable of accommodating 
nearly 140 women. It will cost complete $75,000. 
We must have it next fall or send back fifty 
colored girls to the pine-barrens and plantations. 
It is of no use to beg. We must help ourselves. 
We propose to give concerts, singing the old Negro 
spirituals, of which we have collected an entirely 
new and wonderfully beautiful number, and with the 
avails of these concerts raise the walls of a building for 
the education of colored women. I believe the men 
and the women of the North will help us. They will 
have the chance. We will give our first concert in 
Washington next Saturday night, the isth inst., and 
will advance upon Philadelphia, New York and Boston. 
It is a venture and may not be successful. But it 
seems the thing to try, for there's a power, a vividness, 
a genuineness in this fast-dying-out music that excels 
everything ever composed. It is the echo of old times; 
it is full of wailing tenderness and passionate faith. 
It will soon be gone. Why should it not be used as a 
reminder to the North that there really was such a 
thing as slavery and that its terrible and its worst 
effects are upon the Negro yet? 

The degradation of centuries cannot be thrown off 
in a decade or generation. Negro civilization must 
be a slow growth of time and of persistent, untiring 
effort. Hampton is organized on a permanent basis 
in order to accomplish its end, which is to see the 
Negro through." 



230 Samuel Chapman Armstrong 

Nothing will maintain a man under severe strain 
so well as inspiration and a sense of humor. 
He wrote to his class secretary from Hampton, 
September 30, 1874: 

"In obedience to your instruction I have the honor 
to inform you of myself, life, wife and children as 
follows : I have a remarkable machine for the elevation 
of our colored brethren on which I mean to take out a 
patent. Put in a raw plantation darky and he comes 
out a gentleman of the nineteenth century. Our 
problem is how to skip three centuries in the line of 
development and to atone for the loss and injustice of 
the ages. About $370,000 have been expended here 
since I took hold in the fall of 1867. 

" I have been in- the traveling show business for the 
last two years; have given over 300 concerts with the 
Hampton students (ex-slaves) in behalf of the school. 

"This is a rough and terrible fight with difficulties, 
but I think I'm on top. 

"I am the most fortunate man in the world in my 
family. I have a wife and two little girls — one two 
and the other four years of age. My 'jewels' are the 
rarest and richest on the planet. 

' ' ' Sixty-two ' men will always be welcome at my 
home on Hampton Roads — your reverence [the class 
secretary] especially. I have reserved the choicest 
oysters in this paradise of oysters for the exclusive use 
of the members of that class. 

"The stake of my destiny is planted here, and I have 
never regretted it; this is part of the war on a higher 
plane and with spiritual weapons; it will not soon end 
and success is yet to be won. I cannot understand the 
prevailing views of the war among pious and intelligent 



In the North. J870-J890 231 

Americans. It is simply barbaric — to whip the South 
and go home rejoicing; to build monuments of victory, 
leaving one-third of their countrymen in the depths 
of distress. The case is chiefly moral and the duty sits 
very lightly on the general conscience." 

He paid the price for celebrity which most public 
men must pay, however, in the sacrifice of home 
life and in enforced separation from his family. 
This separation was the more painful because his 
wife's health had begitn to fail. In 1878 Mrs. Arm- 
strong died, leaving two little girls six and eight 
years of age. Here ended such broken home life 
as this naturally most domestic of men had been 
able to enjoy in his free moments; and Armstrong 
became a kind of wanderer, finding in his life at 
Hampton absorption in routine work and in the time 
spent at the North a sympathy and companion- 
ship in the society of congenial friends that was 
lacking in his own home. 



The years 1878 to 1890 may be especially called 
the constructive period of the Hampton school; 
during these twelve years alone eighteen large 
buildings, at a cost of $423,400, were erected and 
land costing $13,500 was purchased. In roimd 
nvimbers the expenditures for "plant" alone during 



232 Samuel Chapman Armstrong 

these years, exclusive of running expenses, amounted 
to $500,000; from 300 students in 1878 the number 
increased to 678 in 1886, a number not since (in 
1902) exceeded. A natural consequence of this 
rapid growth was a great increase in running 
expenses; and General Armstrong was obliged to 
raise yearly from $50,000 to $80,000 merely to keep 
the wolf from the door. 

Under the pressure of this necessity, he addressed 
himself with new care to his work in the North, 
like the hero of a story which he was fond of telling, 
and which embodied what he called his "rule of 
conduct": 

"Once there was an old darky who could not be 
dissuaded from hunting in an empty 'possum hole. 
'Ain't no 'possum in dat hole? Dey's just got to be, 
'cause dey's nuffin' in de house fer supper.'" 

So the "'possum hole" of the North was again 
and again invaded. He wrote to a friend, engaged 
like himself in the education of the northern public : 
"Punch the pubHc or you get nothing; give them 
no peace till you get your money." A certain 
obstinacy of the sort that fights blindly to the end 
was aroused by these constant struggles against 
competition, lack of interest and the prophecies 
of failure which often came to his ears. 

"The dry bones of a thousand failures are in our 
path," he said. "The wet blanket of endless disap- 
pointments has been thrown on us. Men say, 'You 
can't do it.' Experienced men shake their heads; but 



In the North. J870-J890 233 

G [a missionary friend] is going to take hold and 

worry the Christian Church till it planks down the 
money, and it's of no use. Saint and sinner must, side 
by side, jerk the old thing till it moves. Infidel and the 
elect will drop their mites into the contribution box 
till it is filled. We are doing this over a vortex of 
financial calamity, into which we hope not to fall." 

In his appeal for money he always made an 
impassioned plea, not for a direct gift of money 
to relieve the needs of the Negro, but for money to 
help him to help himself through a system of indus- 
trial labor. Knowing that people are best reached 
through their emotions, he generally took with him 
a small band of singers, who could touch with their 
pathetic songs hearts that remained impervious to 
any other appeal ; and perceiving, too, that until a 
cause is personified it has little power to touch the 
hearts of men, he always included in his program a 
few telling recitals of personal experiences. The aim 
of these northern trips was not primarily to bring 
home money, but, in his own words, "to enlist the 
interest of the friends of southern education, and 
if possible to give direction to the benefactions of 
those disposed to aid in the elevation of the lately 
enfranchised race." 

He first organized his campaigns on paper, and 
sent an agent before him to arrange for places of 
meetings; then he himself, with a quartet of 
Negroes, followed — accompanied, perhaps, by two 
Indian students. Their tours extended sometimes 



234 Samuel Chapman Armstrongf 

as far west as Chicago or St. Louis, but usually 
centered round about the towns of New England 
and the cities of New York and Philadelphia. If 
the meeting was in a church at a regular Sunday 
or week-day evening service, a collection was taken ; 
if in a private house, none was taken. General 
Armstrong utilized the interest felt by almost every 
one in the slave songs, the desire of young people 
to see an Indian, and the philanthropic sympathies 
of many toward the freedmen, to draw audiences, 
which gathered in elegant private drawing-rooms, 
in hotel parlors, in churches and in schools. To 
them spoke the little band, ever vitalized into new 
enthusiasm by the spiritual passion which General 
Armstrong diffused like an atmosphere about him 

"I must win," he said. "I can't but see that many 
put faith in me; it would be wrong to humanity to fail, 
and the way is clear. God has not darkened the way, 
but His hand points to a steep and craggy height — it 
must be climbed — I will climb it." 

To infuse enthusiasm into half-alive interests 
seemed to be the work to which he was especially 
dedicated by nature. 

"It [enthusiasm] is a scarce article always," he 
wrote. "Everybody is 'interested' in everything that 
is good. We all are in the elevation of the Hottentots 
or that the Marquesas Islanders should have shirts !" 

His companion for twelve years in this work 



In the North. J870-J890 235 

of energizing passive wills, Reverend Hollis Burke 
Frissell, thus describes a meeting which may be 
considered typical: 

"When the other speeches had been made, General 
Armstrong produced some large diagrams and pictures 
of the new buildings. People were asked to take rooms 
for furnishing at $15 each. He was so rapid in his 
utterance that the audience could hardly hear one 
word in ten which he spoke, but he was so intense that 
they were interested and gave the furnishing for the 
rooms. I think from $15,000 to $20,000 were sub- 
scribed that night. His struggle to be deliberate in 
speaking was always interesting. He would walk on to' 
the stage in a very quiet way and commence slowly and 
go faster and faster as he got into his subject. He 
always thought it wise to present facts, statements of 
what had been done, rather than philosophical dis- 
quisitions and race and educational problems." 

Another who often attended these meetings as 
a listener says: 

"I suppose that every lover of General Armstrong 
recalls some special incident which seems most entirely 
typical of the man's life and heart. For my part, I 
think oftenest of one of those scenes in his many begging 
journeys to the North. It was at a little suburban 
church far down a side street on one winter night in 
the midst of a driving storm of sleet. There was, as 
nearly as possible, no congregation present; a score or 
so of humble people, showing no sign of any means to 
contribute, were scattered through the empty spaces, 
and a dozen restless boys kicked their heels in the front 



236 Samuel Chapman Armstfong; 

pew. Then in the midst of this emptiness and hope- 
lessness up rose the worn, gaunt soldier as bravely and 
gladly as if a multitude were hanging upon his words, 
and his deep-sunk eyes looked out beyond the bleakness 
of the scene into the world of his ideals, and the cold 
little place was aglow with the fire that was in him, 
and it was like the scene on the Mount, that was not any 
less wonderful and glistening because only three undis- 
ceming followers were permitted to see the glory."* 

When he spoke, in hall, church, theater or 
parlor, his speech gushed forth with the ease of the 
born orator; but rapid as it was, it could not keep 
'up with his thoughts, which seemed ever pressing 
it outward and onward. Yet it was not the flow- 
ing style of his contemporary, Phillips Brooks. 
His ideas were shot forth in brief, compact sen- 
tences, not distinguished so much by logical sequence 
as by their power to throw flash-lights of truth 
on different- phases of the subjects he touched. 
Once, in commenting on a certain discussion held 
by a number of ministers, he unintentionally char- 
acterized his own style, saying: 

"Their discussion was rather plain and perky. Not 
one of them took the subject up and shook it as a 
terrier dog shakes a rat." 

No side of his work is more characteristic than 
his persistent effort through times of financial stress 
or in apparently unprofitable situations. He said: 

* Reverend Francis G. Peabody, in an address delivered 
Founders' Day, 1898. 



In the North. J 870- J 890 237 

"Do men give more money to good work when they 
make the most or when they think the most? For 
twenty-three years I have worked for a charity, through 
sharp times and through prosperous seasons, but the 
times have made very httle difference. Nothing extra 
is to be expected for the Lord's work in 'flush times,' 
and a certain fine spirit carries it through the darkest 
day." 

One gets an interesting view of his own attitude 
toward this unceasing labor of money-raising in 
the following extract from a letter to the Southern 
Workman: 

"We are now on our way to Columbus for our thirtieth 
meeting, having since our first, at Scranton, Pennsyl- 
vania, on November nth, which was most successful 
and satisfactory, held meetings in the cities of Boston, 
New York, Cleveland (Ohio), Detroit, Milwaukee, 
Madison, Chicago, IndianapoHs and Cincinnati. We 
are to end with Columbus, Pittsburg, New York City 
and Germantown, Pennsylvania, on December nth. 
Our party consists of Reverend Mr. Frissell and myself, 
with our quartet, two of whom, Major Boykin and 
Mr. Daggs, are also speakers, and two Indian boys. 
Our main object has been to create interest rather than 
to collect money, and yet the plate collections, kindly 
volunteered at the end of most of the meetings, will 
probably bring a few hundred dollars over expenses. 
A few seventy-dollar scholarships have been secured. 
Presbyterian, Episcopal, Congregational, Baptist and 
other churches have been most hospitably opened 
everywhere without expense to us. Clerg3^men of 
various denominations have usually honored the plat- 
form and taken part with us in hearty and cordial ways. 



238 Samuel Chapman Armstrong: 

The rich chords of the old slave music have floated 
away into the arches of church and cathedral, or been 
echoed by the walls of plain 'meeting houses' with 
equally touching effect, sustaining always their fitness 
and dignity. To the simple and original thoughts of 
the speakers we also owed much. The first two speeches 
are somewhat personal and descriptive; the last two 
are broader in outlook and more general in statement, 
and we found they are quite as appropriate for Sundays 
as for weekday services, for they are genuine and 
straightforward, showing that they are the honest 
outcome of the speaker's experience. The endeavor 
to create a breadth of interest had been one of our 
aspirations. Our claims are second to those of local 
charities and denominational societies created in the 
interest of the two races whom we represent; churches 
as such do not help Hampton, but individuals in them 
are our help and strength. We always, I think, 
strengthen rather than weaken the local effort for 
Indian and Negro, and have done almost as much good 
for other schools as for our own. Our point has been 
to make a better and broader hope for and interest 
in both races. But it is of little use to excite momentary 
interest unless this is followed up by personal effort, 
and there is seldom any one to do this, though it some- 
times happens that some listener is moved to undertake 
it as a labor of love. Those willing to work have 
already all that they can do. I never realized more 
fully how true it is that Christian churches are ' centers 
of work.' Pulpits are used so much as advertising 
mediums that printed Sunday bulletins are introduced 
instead and work well. A money harvest, Hke any other, 
comes from cultivation of the ground. We sow seed, 
much of which would bear fruit if attended to, but at 
the moment it is always impossible to estimate as to 



In the North. J870-J890 239 

the effect of any meeting, for there may be far-off 
results of which we see no present evidence. The 
maxim of war that 'one shot in five hundred hits' 
often occurs to me. Always, too, it has to be borne in 
mind that an enlightened public sentiment is at the 
foundation of all good public effort. From this point of 
view the educational value of our thirty-five meetings 
more than justified what they cost in time and money. 
The usually good audiences represent only a small 
part of those influenced. Newspaper notes and reports 
have reached hundreds of thousands, and though only 
glanced at by most readers, are on the side of hope and 
faith in our 'despised races.' It is true that all this 
is only a 'drop in the bucket,' but drop by drop the 
bucket is filled. Ours is one of many influences by 
which the Negro and Indian questions are kept before 
the people. During the first twenty years after the 
war magazines and newspapers contained little dis- 
cussions of the 'race question'; now books, pamphlets 
and articles on it are constantly appearing, and most 
of them have only impracticable solutions to offer, 
such as disenfranchisement or deportation of the 
blacks, etc. As an object lesson, therefore, our four 
speeches are always telling. The two Negroes and their 
two Indian companions stand for tens of thousands 
behind them, who only need a fair chance to become 
good citizens. They speak their own thoughts and 
words, not written for them, and their appeal is strong. 
' Give us a chance to make men and women of ourselves ' 
is all they ask. . . . The study of audiences is 
interesting, and we are struck by differences as we go 
west and in the churches in which we speak. There 
are almost always a lot of small boys in front, who 
come to get a good look at the Indians, and can hardly 
realize that these tall, manly, uniformed young men are 



240 Samuel Chapman Armstrong 

the objects of their curiosity. They are a sure test 
of the meeting; if it is too long, their gaze wanders and 
they finally fall asleep. While their eyes are still open 
we know all is well. The newspapers are as a rule 
ready to lend a hand to a good cause and have been 
uniformly kind and liberal in their motives, but there 
is a marked difference in reporters, some catching the 
spirit of things while others merely state the facts. 
The freshness and vigor of the student speakers and 
singers, after thirty-five meetings of the same kind, 
are remarkable. No sign of weakening or of parrot- 
like repetition can be seen — each new audience is a 
stimulus that brings one up to his best. School studies 
are continued in the cars and at hotels. A month out 
is a serious thing, and would put the boys hopelessly 
back in their studies did they not work over their 
books every day from three to five hours. 

" I notice a better feeling of late toward well-appearing 
colored people. All hotels do not welcome our party, 
but we can always get good places. On the whole, 
prejudice seems to be slowly giving way. There is a 
marked difference between to-day and 1873, when the 
Hampton singers were out on their campaign of three 
and a half years to erect Virginia Hall. I am sure that 
the present expedition has done good ; the manly bearing 
of the students has been marked and their appearance 
at table commended. There has been no friction 
whatever, only kindness and good will from first to 
last. Things are improving along the whole line, too 
slowly for some, but that revolutions do not go back- 
ward is strikingly shown in recent American history." 

On these trips he denied himself, for economy's 
sake, the ordinary ameliorations of travel, rarely 
even taking a parlor car. He habitually read or 



In the North, J870-J890 241 

wrote while riding in trains, and thus it was that 
he was able to keep up the wide range of reading 
which held him in touch with men of widely varied 
interests. In traveling he often went to the 
same hotels as his colored students, refusing offers 
of private hospitality from a sense of loyalty to the 
race who had responded so nobly to his efforts in 
their behalf. 

General Armstrong felt that the effort of raising 
money by such means as these, difficult as they 
w^ere, should never be completely abandoned; for 
he feared that the Hampton school, once comforta- 
bly well off, would become an "easy" place for a 
young man or woman to get an education, and 
that the North, once free from constant appeals to 
aid, would become indifferent to the needs of the 
Negro and the Indian. This feeling, coupled with 
his always earnest desire to have a fund that would 
" lessen the severe and in more ways than one costly 
labor of collecting income, give the school a life of 
its own, independent of any one man's life or power, 
and better secure it against exigencies," caused him 
at times to speak in ways that appeared incon- 
sistent, but it will readily be seen that his thought 
was simple ; he desired partial, not complete endow- 
ment. 

In the course of these "begging" trips — ^his own 
designation — there was necessarily, as his acquaint- 
ance became larger, a vast amount of individual 
work, carried on by means of personal calls at the 



242 Samuel Chapman Armstrong 

houses or offices of business men or by means of 
letters. It was his habit not to ask directly for 
money, but to present his cause and let it plead 
for itself, but there were times when a more direct 
method was necessary. 

"I always feel as if I was sticking my head in the 
lion's mouth when I am asking for money. Well, it 
has never been bitten off yet," he said. 

In a letter to a friend to whom he was used to 
apply for advice in these personal matters, he says : 

"Would it be wise, do you think, to write direct 

to , who must be overloaded and deafened by 

continuous howls of poverty-stricken institutions and 
humanity? But we howl, too; it is our business. But 
it doesn't do to howl imprudently; discretion is the 
better part of begging. My idea would be to suggest 
a seventy-dollar scholarship given yearly, with no 
promise whatever of continuance, taking the matter up 
yearly for a fresh decision. I care for no pledges. 
People who take hold here usually don't let go. Volun- 
tary offerings are the best. Pledges are uncomfortable. 
Still we need not a big lift all at once, but a stream 
coming in steadily from year to year. I wish to get 
people into this, to swell the stream, making it a river 
of life and light to Africa." 

In these personal dealings great discretion, tact 
and delicacy were needed. To the same friend he 
wrote : 

"Many times it is better to do nothing in order to 
succeed. People who give and who advise are com- 



In the North. I870-J890 243 

pelled to a severe consistency and system of use both 
of money and of influence, which is indispensable to 
the best results. Where I have the most influence I 
use it the least. The result, I believe, is in the end 
far better." 

In a report to the trustees, written in 1889, he 
says: 

" I never cease to wonder at the patience and kindness 
of those who daily listen to appeals from here and some 
other quarters, the wear and tear of which can be 
hardly less than of those who solicit aid from these 
overtaxed givers. Having myself sometimes been 
called on to endorse agents from southern schools, 
I have found it usually difficult to do justice to these 
earnest workers and at the same time to be fair to the 
charitable who should give in the light of all the facts. 
I therefore venture to tell briefly and by way of 
illustration our own methods. 

"Mr. Thomas Cayton, a graduate of the Hampton 
school and for six years a teacher, but compelled by a 
partial loss of sight to give up this work, is sent to 
secure subscriptions for the Southern Workman and 
aid for and interest in the school. He presents a letter 
from me, stating his mission, his salary, that he has no 
commission, how his expenses are paid and the amount 
and description of the money he collected the preced- 
ing year. In these cases I think money should always 
be refused unless the gifts of the preceding year are 
accounted for. 

"Nothing so encourages carelessness and waste of 
money (of which there has been a great deal), by often 
well-meaning agents, as taking for granted that an im- 
pressive appeal is necessarily trustworthy. 



244 Samuel Chapman Afmstrong 

"Those who do not keep strict accounts are not fit 
to be trusted with money, and such accounts would 
sometimes show a large per cent, used as expenses. 
Care in giving means, in the end, the ability to give not 
only more, but more wisely." 

If his ovcrtiires were not at once heeded, the 
delay or failure only stimulated him to fresh effort. 
One of his favorite mottoes was a saying of his old 
colonel in the Troy regiment: "Captain, when you 
want anything and can't get it, raise the devil ! " 
General J. F. B. Marshall said of him: 

" For most people an obstacle is something in the way 
to stop going on, but for General Armstrong it merely 
meant something to climb over, and if he could not 
climb all the way over he would get up as high as 
possible and then crow!" 

As he grew older he began to crave the stimulus 
of constant hurry, work and rush, and grew impa- 
tient after even a few days of inactivity. 

"I have had a taste of blood," he said; "that is, I 
have had the taste of life and work — cannot live with- 
out the arena. I must be in it. . . . Despair shakes 
his skinny hands and glares his hideous eyes on me to 
little purpose. I feel happy when all my powers of 
resistance are taxed." 

This restless life produced its due effect physically 
and he was troubled for years with dyspepsia and 
sleeplessness. It is an indication of great physical 



In the North. I870-I890 245 

vigor, the priceless legacy of his long and whole- 
some boyhood, that in spite of this physical weak- 
ness he was able to keep the courage and optimism 
of his youth until middle life. He sincerely tried to 
conquer these harmful physical tendencies, to use 
great caution in eating and to take rest whenever 
possible, but never succeeded in bearing in mind 
his physical limitations when it seemed to him 
that the welfare of Negro and Indian was at stake. 
He wrote to his wife as early as 1870: 

"Your prayer that the sweet little cherub that sits 
up aloft may watch over me in cars, boats and hotels 
is especially in point in respect to the latter, for do not 
little imps hide in fried potatoes and oysters, while the 
paw of the fiend has consecrated pie to an unholy mis- 
sion? Dyspepsia is but the buffeting of Satan, while 
sirens that lure the young man to the shipwreck of his 
soul do not in reality sing songs upon inviting shores, 
but with white aprons on bring hot cakes wherewith to 
entice him to his ruin. The Circean cup is for sale by 
all druggists. . . . Sound, sensible cooking has a 
great deal to do with the sublimest raptures of the soul." 

In 1886 he suffered from a severe illness, the 
effect of this long-continued strain, and at this 
time made strong resolutions to reform: 

"It all comes from overdoing — from my intemperate 
life. I have to learn a hard lesson: to reform, to have 
to live in a wise, not wasteful but useful, way after a 
life of extravagance is not easy. Am I to be like an 
old patched-up steam boiler that after all is worn out 



246 Samuel Chapman Armstrong 

and good for nothing ? Heaven forbid ! Help me 
with your prayers ! " 

At this time a subscription was taken up among 
his friends and a considerable sum sent to him to 
use as a "health fund." His comments on this 
gift are characteristic. To a friend, one of the 
principal givers, he writes: 

"Have just received — as a health fund — a trust 
fund to turn into strength and work for the country 
what is left of my somewhat weakened powers. I hope 
to make it a good investment. I will try to work it 
out and make my good friends feel that they have done 
well, for you know there are other fellows better than 
I putting in their best licks for God and humanity 
who don't make half the fuss I do, who to do their work 
have had to keep near to the paths of impecuniosity, 
so to speak, and need looking after; for me to feast is 
to go terribly back on them, for it would discourage the 
good like you, who are on the lookout to see what lift 
or help they can give in the world's scrimmage. Pray 
for me that I be sensible and level-headed in this new 
and blessed and yet trying experience." 

Some time after the receipt of this "trust fund" 
he rendered a formal account of the expenditure of 
it for distribution to the unknown donors through 
the chairman of the committee in charge of the 
matter. The sum, which amounted to a few 
thousand dollars, he had divided into three parts. 
The first part, which amounted to about half of the 
entire sum, he spent in putting up a small cottage, 



In the North, J870-J890 247 

conveniently near, yet separated by a stretch of 
water from his home at Hampton. He writes con- 
cerning this item of expenditure: 

"Bluff Cottage is a pretty, well-kept cottage across 
Hampton Creek, beautifully situated upon the highest 
point of the neighboring shore. There I spend a few 
weeks in the late spring, and the teachers get delightful 
rest and change, going in parties of six or seven to spend 
Saturday and Sunday nights in the late winter and 
spring. The sound of plashing waves and the fine 
water view over there make it a complete break from 
school routine." 

The next statement concerns a small sum spent 
in a trip to the South and the Bahama Islands. 
Referring to this he writes: 

"My southern trip has been ever since a great help 
in discussing the Negro question. I had long wished 
to study the blacks in the Gulf States and the English 
treatm^ent of them at the West Indies. . . . Five 
weeks in Dakota in August and September, visiting 
six reservations and studying Indian life and conditions, 
has given me vantage ground of the greatest value in 
writing and speaking on the Indian question. I have 
had almost constant use for the facts and impressions 
gained on my southern and western trips." 

The few hundred dollars that remained were used 
partly as a gift to an associate and partly for a 
Slimmer camping trip: 

"Mr, has had much extra work on account of 

my illness and needed the little trip. Camping out 



248 Samtiel Chapman Afmstfong 

with my daughters at Asquam Lake, New Hampshire, 
in July and August, was most pleasant and in every 
way profitable. . . . Please excuse this egotistic 
statement." 

This use of money was characteristic. All per- 
sonal funds were to him trust funds, to be put, 
if absolutely necessary, into procuring a working 
outfit of health, but if possible to be given directly 
over to the pressing needs of his work, whose varied 
claims could never be met by gifts, which were 
usually for specified purposes alone. 

Such was the pressure of his work, however, that 
the excellent resolutions he formed when sick and 
suffering modified but slightly his later course in 
life. It was only at the houses of friends in the 
North that he found such approach to rest as his 
temperament allowed him. 

Says one by whose hearth he felt most at home: 

"He talked little of his work unless asked directly 
about it. He caught up any topic that was touched 
upon and tossed the ball of conversation most nimbly to 
and fro. A delightful gaiety is my most general 
recollection. There were serious moments when he 
rose to very great heights of simplicity and insight. 
. . . One felt the whole striving of the man 
toward a goal he revered. 

"But geniality, wit, humanity, all these showed in 
his speech, and when he came in it was always 
as if a wind of strength and healing blew. I 
never saw him discouraged or downcast, even 
when things seemed very doubtful. I remember his 



In the North. J870-J890 249 

telling me once about a college mate he had just seen 
who had grown suddenly very rich, and spreading his 
hands he said, 'These are all there is between my 
little girls and the world,' and then he threw back his 
head and gave a most boyish laugh. 'And that's the 
way I like it ! ' 

"He was often brilliant, always delightful, even when 
we knew he was tired and suffering. It was his wonder- 
ful courage that never flagged that shines most in my 
mem.ory. Whatever topic he touched on, one felt the 
gallant heart. . , . He told delightful stories to 
my children, and no one ever went away from him 
without strength and fresh hope." 

He often sought relief under pressure of care in 
some outburst of nonsense. When a company was 
gathered together to meet him socially, he some- 
times offered to sing his famous Chinese song. 
When all had expressed a desire to hear it, he 
would procure a tin pan and fork for each and 
tell every one to beat on the pan when he gave 
the word. 

He would then sit down in the center of the circle, 
and with a perfectly solemn face sing gibberish 
which sounded sufficiently like Chinese, declaring 
it was a classical love song in that tongue. At 
intervals he would call for the pans, and all would 
solemnly beat their pans, producing dreadful dis- 
cords; at last some one would burst out laughing 
and a general laugh would ensue, which was what he 
made the performance for. 

He hated melancholy, long-faced gatherings; if 



250 Samoel Chapman Armstrong 

he could include in his games staid, elderly per- 
sons who were used to taking themselves seriously, 
or, as he would say, "unused to standing on 
their heads as jolly ministers should," he was more 
than pleased. 

He frequently attended the conference held at 
Lake Mohonk in behalf of the Indians, and enjoyed 
every moment of scrambling in the woods and 
rowing on the lake. One who knew him there says: 
"He used to say, 'Just a minute, till I have 
disposed of these missionaries, and then we will go 
out and flop.'" This process consisted of lying 
near some running stream and watching the clouds 
float by, interrupting his reverie often by some 
funny incident or story. 

At these Lake Mohonk conferences he would 
many a time keep every one sitting near him in 
fits of laughter with his running comments, and 
then without a moment's warning would be on 
his feet, speaking with all his usual ardor and 
vehemence. 

It is as impossible to reproduce the sparkle and 
dash of his talk as it is to throw on the canvas the 
living man, but bits from his private correspondence 
may serve as suggestions of the quality of his 
conversation. 

These bits are usually found in no direct connec- 
tion with what precedes or follows. They are, as 
it were, flashed out as a result of some internal 
process of attrition: 



In the North, 1870-^890 251 

" The chief comfort in Hfe is babies. Institutions 
are a grind, humanity a good deal of a bore; causes are 
tiresome, and men of one idea are a weariness." 

"What you spend on yourself you lose; what you 
give you gain." 

"Don't let Emerson with his glittering half-truths 
trouble. He is almost a prophet, and as he says indeed, 
'Love will change.' That is well, because it only rests 
with us whether for the better or worse. There is always 
an evil alternative to every bright possibility. , . ." 
This is a world of cares ; let us rather say this — we 
are immortal ; our present coil is on the whole a very com- 
fortable one and is truly wonderfully made. We are 
compelled to rub for a few years through a world in 
which things are very much mixed up, and we should 
make the best of it, and above all be good natured." 

"When it comes to the scratch, I believe in the prayers 
of the unorthodox — why are they not as effectual as 
any? From the deep human heart to the Infinite 
Heart there is a line along which will pass the real cry 
and the sympathetic answer — a double flash from the 
moral magnetism that fills the universe. Its conditions 
are not found in theological belief, but in the spirit of 
a little child. We can no more understand our human 
brother than our Father in Heaven without bringing 
faith — the evidence of things unseen — the subject of 
things hoped for — to our aid." 

"I attended Dr. S 's church and liked the old 

gentleman's preaching, only he read off what he had to 
say, and, in the mysterious way ministers usually have — 
or, rather, the devil does it for them — he administered 
a kind of opiate along with his stirring appeal which 
enabled us to go away feeling pretty comfortable." 

"The deep truth about all noble hfe is that it is 
renewed every day. It commences from no date. It 



252 Samuel Chapman Armstrong 

begins with the day, with the hour; it is constant renewal; 
the passing moment is a crisis. There is little inertia 
in the soul. The past has enough to do to help itself, 
and we cannot make reserves of goodness; the need of 
each day exhausts all the supply." 

"True worship is a gentle, sensitive, shrinking emo- 
tion that steals softly into hearts in quiet moments, 
often in response to some beautiful scene ; sometimes it 
comes to us from the faithful true ones near us. It seems 
to shun the throng. There is a religious impression 
often in a magnificent church, but it is not worship." 

"All progress of strong hearts is by action and 
reaction. Human life is too weak to be an incessant 
eagle flight toward the Sun of Righteousness. Wings 
will be sometimes folded because they are wings. The 
pinions that endure in eternal flight are fitted to us by 
Heaven's messengers that meet the ascending spirit. 
The earthly struggle must be enduring — ^that is all. 
There must be no surrender; we can't expect much of 
victory here." 

"I dislike public prayer very much, because one is 
so self-conscious; it is a hard thing to rise up before 
people and pray to God and not to them. I have been 
greatly troubled in this way, and only take part in that 
public exercise when it is plainly in the line of duty and 
good sense. I don't mind the students here; I enjoy it 
with them alone, but there are always some of the house- 
hold present and that I hardly fancy. But this is all 
a confession of weakness." 

"The kingdom of heaven will, I think, come through 
Christian sociology. Missionary work is founded on 
it, but doesn't half recognize the fact." 

"Experience has been called 'an arch through which 
gleams the untraveled world'; it has been called 'stern 
lights'; but I prefer to call it a slow fire over which 



In the Notth. J870-J890 253 

mortals are gradually turned on the toasting-fork of 
destiny." 

'"There's no such word as fail.' It is very true. 
Equally true that there is failure in all success, and the 
converse is true." 

"Politics and philanthropy are a grind; only when 
one is really at the post of duty and knows it there is 
a sensation of being lifted and lifting {et teneo et teneor) 
which sometimes comes gradually over one. Detail is 
grinding, the whole inspiring. God's kings and priests 
must drudge in seedy clothes before they can wear the 
purple." 

"Barbarism is horrible in its reality, but picturesque 
and beautiful in its ruin. In killing it there is danger 
that we kill the man that has it and his interesting 
accessories." 

"Royalty is kept from reality and in respect to 
genuine opportunities is singularly destitute. The 
beggar is nearer to truth than the king." 

"God gave men moral energies for moral ends as 
other energies for other ends. You will gather where 
you sow — you will raise sugar where you work for it. 
You will raise up intelligence, morality and religion as 
you shall work for that." 

"The adversary of souls hasn't half a chance at one 
on a bright winter's day. Conscience shoulders arms 
and stands at ' attention. ' Hence New England virtue; 
hence tropical looseness." 

"To get at truth, divide a hyperbole by any number 
greater than two. ... In animated narrative 
divide facts by ten." 

Naturally interested in educational topics, Arm- 
strong had some radical theories in regard to educa- 
tion as applied to his own and other people's children. 



454 Samael Chapman Armstfong 

He regarded education in its broadest sense, and 
always laid more stress on the influence of the 
teacher and of the surroundings than on any method 
or course of study. 

"Education by atmosphere is the most real; its 
results are eternal, for it makes character," and he 
regarded character as the goal in all education. 
"Development is more and more my idea of educa- 
tion." He thought it right that each person should 
follow his own bent, and felt that "it is mean for 
parents to interfere with their children's growth 
and progress" by claiming their society when their 
development seemed to be better forwarded else- 
where than at home. 

As the Indian work at Hampton was sustained 
financially by yearly Congressional grants, trips 
to Washington to secure and insure these appropri- 
ations and visits to the Lake Mohonk Indian Confer- 
ence to keep himself informed concerning Indian 
affairs thus became a part of General Armstrong's 
yearly routine and brought him into greater 
intimacy with national affairs. 

Thus he came more and more into the public eye. 
As the leading exponent of Negro education, as a 
champion of the Indian, and as a successful industrial 
educator, he was often invited to address clubs and 
societies in eastern cities, attend public dinners, 
or write articles for the press, so that during his 
later years he had not only the carrying on of 
Hampton and the effort of raising money to meet 




SAMUEL CHAPMAN ARMSTRONC, 



In the Nofth. J870-J890 255 

its needs, but the varied demands of many public 
interests to complicate his life. 

In the year 1887 the degree of LL.D. was conferred 
upon him by his alma mater, Williams College, and 
in 1889 by Harvard University. He felt these 
honors deeply, yet received them in all humility 
as tokens of the nation's kindness to those who were 
doing its work. His response to a speech of intro- 
duction at Harvard shows this impersonal habit of 
mind. It was his work, not himself, that was ever 
uppermost. He said: 

"Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Alumni: 
This is my first presence at a Harvard commence- 
ment, and I can never forget the pleasure and the honor 
of it. It is great. Those of us who receive these honors 
have more pleasure in them for the sake of our mothers 
and our friends than for ourselves, and I thank you 
for them as well as myself. This scene is grand and 
inspiring. You have nobly honored your soldier boys 
in this hall. I think the next time the country calls 
for them there will be one hundred per cent, of Harvard 
students ready to go. Dealing with the so-called 
despised races, I have found that there is an inspira- 
tion in self-help ; that from the incessant daily strain of 
brain and body in a combined system of labor and 
schooling, such as would be impossible as a basis of 
any northern educational work, there comes to these 
people a manliness and moral force and vigor of thought 
and action which command the respect of all. The 
simply trained Negro boy or Indian boy of Hampton 
may be worth as much as an accomplished Harvard 
graduate, and he is as ready to die for his country and, 
what is more difficult, to live for it." 



256 Samuel Chapman Armstrong 

To General Armstrong's campaigns through the 
North is due a large part of the present interest and 
confidence in the possibilities of the Negro under 
wise leadership. On these topics the public is now 
informed to a far greater extent than formerly, and 
the opinion that industrial training is the training 
best adapted to these weaker races has become 
general. Both his aims at the Hampton school and 
his method of raising money at the North have been 
many times duplicated, until few persons in the 
North can question the fact that it pays, and that 
it is a national duty to educate the Negro and 
the Indian into worthy citizenship.) 



CHAPTER IX 

The Negro and the South 

General Armstrong's lifelong habit of pre- 
serving a non-partizan attitude, of looking at both 
sides of a question, stood him in good stead in his 
relations to his sotithern neighbors and to the 
complex problem^i of southern life. It enabled 
him to regard them from the point of view of a 
philosopher and not of a political opponent. The 
following extracts are taken from letters written to 
a society in Honolulu of w^hich he was a life mem- 
ber. He often spoke of the similarity of the prob- 
lems of southern American and of Hawaiian life, 
each encompassed by a large population of dark- 
skinned people. In 1889 he wrote: 

"You get from the papers very little insight into the 
South. They write for their market. The South is 
more and more tolerant of free speech; tremendous 
but quiet changes are going on, even in the heart of 
Mississippi, where the splendid chances for stock rais- 
ing are attracting Northerners. Cotton-growing there 
is leaving the uplands for the Yazoo bottom and like 
regions, whither the Negroes are flocking by thousands 
and getting small farms, while Bermuda and orchard 
and other grasses are found to flourish on the exhausted 
old cotton fields. Grass makes beef, beef makes men; 

257 



258 Samwel Chapman Armstfong 

cotton is dethroned, grass is king; the crop is worth 
three times as much as the cotton crop. When the 
South raises its own meat — pork especially — and 
ceases to buy it in the northwest, reconstruction will 
be complete, for then the South can pay any price for 
education." 

"The Negroes of the South are capable of and do 
many provoking things; but generally the fiery south- 
em spirit acts so excessively that sympathy with the 
provocation is lost in condemnation of its extreme 
measures." 

"The war was the saving of the South. Defeat and 
ruin brought more material prosperity to the South 
than to the North, and the future has untold advan- 
tages in store. This is the true reconstruction. Edu- 
cation is part of it, but capital and enterprise, which 
make men work, are the greater part. The Negro and 
poor white and, more than all, the old aristocrat are 
being saved by hard work, which, next to the grace of 
God, saves our souls. . . . Good sense and a love 
of fair play are, I believe, the ruling instincts at the 
South, but Southerners so dreadfully overdo the thing 
in dealing with the Negro ! Where a mere show of 
force would answer they shoot half a dozen blacks, the 
whites usually not getting hurt. . . . The angry 
race feeling that crops out here and there between the 
races at the South is not the rule. But nearly 8,000,000 
blacks among 12,000,000 unsympathetic whites will 
have some trouble and to some extent must and will 
be 'sat on' politically. Monkeying with power, 
whether in Hawaii or in the Sunny South, will end by 
the monkey losing a part or the whole of his tail." 

In an address delivered at Williams College 
Febniary, 1890, were these words: 



The Negro and the South 259 

"There is a great deal of misunderstanding on the 
part of the North regarding the South. The word 
South means a very large territory. You speak of the 
South as a whole as all bad ; but in eight of the southern 
States it is admitted that there is no trouble, but they 
are held responsible for the acts of the others. In the 
other southern States there are occasional outrages, 
which are due largely to the peculiar temperament of 
the people; this the people of the North cannot under- 
stand. They cannot understand the peculiar relations 
of the Negroes to the whites. What would you do if 
you had this great preponderance of Negroes among 
you? You don't know. No one can know until it 
has been tried. The Negro is a great political and 
social element which has to be met by the South. It 
is not his political standing that makes the trouble, 
but his social standing." 

In the years that elapsed between 1870 and 1890 
a change came over many of his opinions concerning 
reconstruction. It will be remembered that while 
in the employ of the Freedmen's Bureau he heartily 
endorsed that policy in general, as became a loyal 
employee ; later he saw that reconstruction measures 
had failed in certain radical ways, and characterized 
them as "a bridge of wood over a river of fire." 

Yet to the basal fact of the reconstruction scheme 
he always gave unquestioning adherence. The 
granting of the suffrage to the Negroes was the 
starting-point of his work; since the Negro was a 
voter, he must be a worthy voter; to make the 
enfranchised colored man an honorable citizen was 
the best work for his country that General Armstrong 



26o Samuel Chapman Atmstrong 

knew how to do. Without this corner-stone, the 
structures of education, thrift and morahty which 
he was striving to rear rested on no assured basis; 
but for the privilege of the suffrage the Negro 
would be at the mercy of every unprincipled neigh- 
bor. His own words — not the words of a party 
man, for though voting with the Republican party 
in general he was far from confining his sympathies 
to the measures of that party — show his reasons for 
this attitude. In a reply to an article by Senator 
Wade Hampton, which argued that if a suffrage 
with educational qualifications had been granted 
when the question was first brought up it would 
have acted as an incentive to the Negroes to 
qualify themselves to vote, he wrote in i< 



"How could they have qualified themselves, or who 
would have qualified them? Would their former 
miasters have hastened to put an independent vote into 
their hands? What but the pressure of the very exi- 
gency of general suffrage has created the general senti- 
ment for education and built up the common-school 
system in the South that is one of the marvels of the 
last twenty years?" 

In a public address delivered in 1887, in words 
that perhaps express his opinions as clearly as any, 
he said: 

"After all, being a citizen and a voter has more than 
anything else made the Negro a man. The recognition 
of his manhood has done much to create it. Political 
power is a two-edged sword which may cut both ways 



The Negfo and the South 261 

and do as much harm as good. In the main, it has, I 
beHeve, been the chief developing force in the progress 
of the race. It is, however, probable that this would 
not have been so had it not been for the support of a 
surrounding white civilization which, though not always 
kind, has prevented the evils which would have resulted 
from an unrestricted black vote." 

"The political experience of the Negro has been a 
great education to him. In spite of his many blunders 
and unintentional crimes against civilization, he is 
to-day more of a man than he would have been had he 
not been a voter. . . . Manhood is best brought 
out by recognition of it. Citizenship, together with 
the common school, is the great developing force in 
this country. It compels attention to the danger 
which it creates. There is nothing like faith in man 
to bring out the manly qualities." 

"Suffrage furnished him [the Negro] with a stimulus 
which was terribly misused, but it has reacted and 
given him a training which it was out of the power 
of churches and schools to impart. The source of 
American intelligence is not so much the pedagogue as 
the system which gives each man a share in the conduct 
of affairs, leading him to think, discuss and act, and 
thus educating him quite as much by his failures as by 
his successes. Responsibility is the best educator." 

From an editorial written in 1878: 

"Hereafter it will be seen that Negro suffrage was a 
boon to the race, not so much for a defense, but as a 
tremendous fact that compelled its education. There 
is nothing to do but attempt its elevation in every 
possible way. In their pinching poverty the southern 
States have seized the question of Negro education 



262 Samuel Chapman Armstrong 

with a vigor that is the outcome of danger. The ex- 
slave would have sunk into practical serfdom not by 
oppression, but by stagnation of his mind. We have 
no reason to think that the South would have fitted 
him to vote, but now it must be done, and it will be 
done with an energy that is bom of emergency. To 
universal suffrage in the South, more than to anything 
else, is due the existence of the strong and growing 
class of ex-slave-holders, who advocate free schools for 
all. Reason may appear to be in favor of limited 
suffrage; experience seems on the other side." 

"The talk of disfranchisement is idle; it comes too 
late; the Negro is not what he was twenty-five years 
ago, and the next half-century will see great changes." 

His yearly written observations of the progress 
and condition of the Negro race form a series of 
papers interesting both to the student of southern 
affairs and to one who is concerned with Samuel 
Armstrong's development, for here speaks the 
mature mind through the practised pen; here he 
indicates a method which he found to be adapted 
to the treatment of such vexed questions as the 
position of the Negro in the South, a method broad, 
impartial and reasonable. These extracts touch 
briefly on the social, moral, political, financial and 
educational situation among the Negroes. In a 
report to the trustees, written in 1886, he says: 

"Party ties are loosening; personal interest and 
influence are more and more decisive in political action. 
Reasonably well assured that he is secure in the rights 
he has so far attained, the colored man has, in most of 



The Negffo and the South 263 

the southern States, no longer serious anxiety on elec- 
tion days. I think that, on the whole, the Negroes 
are less devoted than formerly to politics, which are 
becoming the specialty of a few, and that our black pop- 
ulation is forming itself into strata. The highest — ^that 
is, the best third or fourth — are progressing, gaining 
rapidly in education, property and character, while 
the lowest third or fourth are stationary in miserable 
conditions, or, worse still, are slowly sinking into lower 
depths. There is a large, well-behaved middle class 
who take life easily and work when they must; they 
are laborers and producers, and add much to the wealth 
of the country, but lack ambition, are careless of the 
future, and must be moved by forces from without 
rather than from within. The hope for them lies in the 
good management of landholders and employers of 
every kind and in the lifting influences of a practical 
Christian education. 

"The earnest, capable schoolteacher can, both 
directly and through his pupils, instruct them in 
and inspire them to better things. The graduates 
of Hampton and other institutions during the last 
sixteen years have proved this. The black race is 
strikingly responsive to the influences about it. Its 
condition in the South corresponds to that of the 
surrounding whites; it shares in their prosperity or 
adversity, and has kept pace pretty well with the 
stronger race in the growth of 'the New South.' 

"The Negroes just now need light more than rights. 
In their darkness they are, especially in the South, 
suffering untold evils from the credit or contract system, 
through which, partly by their own fault and partly 
from the advantage taken of them, tens and hundreds 
of thousands of them are kept in fixed and hopeless 
poverty, harder to bear than their former bondage. 



264 Samoel Chapman Atmsttong; 

Dismayed, they blindly seek some change, and their 
restless movements from point to point result now 
and then in an 'exodus,' where there is always the 
possibility of some new development. Imposed upon 
by others, helpless under their own appetites and pas- 
sions, they appeal to our sympathies more than do 
those who are literally blind, for we must never forget 
that they are in no sense responsible for their own 
ignorance. 

"The recent temperance agitation under ' local 
option' laws passed by various southern States, Georgia 
leading, is a most hopeful sign. Experience has proven 
the success of prohibition in country regions, and the 
southern population is largely in the country. While 
not hard drinkers, the blacks very generally drink, and 
keep themselves poor by the yearly consumption of 
the value of thousands of farms and homes. To-day 
they need emancipation from whisky as much as 
twenty years ago they needed it from their task-masters, 
but I count upon prohibition only as one weapon among 
many which should be used in fighting this battle. It 
is not political pressure, but moral inspiration, which 
will gain the day, and it is only as the former is 
used as a means to an end that I can give it my 
hearty support." 

And in 1889: 

"As might be expected, the popular talk about the 
Negro is all in a hopeless key; but to the direct ques- 
tions, 'Are the laborer's pigs and poultry and crops safer 
than ten years ago? Are the loafer and thief more 
likely to get their due? Are the Negroes inclined to 
get homesteads?' the answer is usually 'Yes.' 

"There are unquestionably multitudes of 'low- 



The Negro and the South 265 

down' Negroes and many wretched neighborhoods, 
but I think that intelHgent white men everywhere in 
the South admit that the hne between the good and 
the bad is every year more distinctly drawn — a sure 
proof of progress. The gain was never so rapid as now, 
thanks to Negro pluck and purpose and to the stern 
discipline of their past, which developed qualities 
beyond the power of schools alone to create; and this 
basis of hope is, I believe, beyond the reach of any 
political pressure. Increasing enterprise at the South 
and the new industrial life of the people are helpful 
conditions, and where they are supplemented by educa- 
tion are pushing the better part of the Negro race into 
prosperity, giving them a place and making them a 
power. 

"As prosperity creates social distinctions, political 
divisions will follow, and the human nature of both 
races may be trusted to adjust the relations which are 
indeed to-day generally amicable. In those localities 
where lawlessness and injustice have repelled capital 
and immigration, the penalty of impoverishment is 
the swift result and Government can do little; the 
people must finish the work of reconstruction. 

"I believe there is no such illustration on record of 
the law of compensation as is to be found in the history 
of the Negro race. More has been given them than 
has been taken away. Hard knocks have driven them 
forward. 'Development under difficulties ' seems to 
be their law of progress, and this is their heroic age. 
Indulgence has demoralized the Indian, while harsh- 
ness has strengthened the Negro; our black boys could 
not afford to have their path made too easy. As I look 
at the life of the average white college student, I know 
that our young men could not stand the ordeal of so 
much prosperity, any more than the former could endure 



2 66 Samuel Chapman Armsttong 

the strain which develops our Hampton boys. The 
Negro's 'speed,' so to speak, is more rapid than that 
of the white student, becaues he still feels the momen- 
tum always associated with the first period of growth; 
but this, rightly measured, is in no sense deceptive. 
There is no doubt that against the Negro can be arrayed 
a formidable phalanx of discouraging facts, but the 
weight of evidence is finally in his favor, and we have 
a right to our enthusiasm. Without it, indeed, we 
should poorly serve the cause for which we stand, for 
nothing so cripples a worker as a burden of grievances, 
and our strength is in our belief that the providential 
guidance of the Negro is as manifest to-day as it 
ever was," 

General Armstrong gained his impressions of the 
South and the Negroes both from conversation and 
contact with many hundred young colored people 
at the Hampton school and from trips taken 
through the South for the purpose of informing him- 
self concerning the real condition of their people. 
While on these tours he traveled incognito, as it 
were ; for no one would suspect the northern philan- 
thropist in the soldierly, keen-eyed man, dressed 
in a rather baggy gray suit and black slouched hat. 
Indeed, his type of face resembled rather that of the 
Englishman of action, so that unsuspected he was 
able to converse freely with men of all sorts every- 
where, interrogating with equal interest the station 
loafer — while the train made the leisurely halts 
peculiar to southern railways — or the more culti- 
vated travelers within the coaches. 



The Negto and the Sooth 267 

The following extracts from letters written to his 
school paper describe impressions of South Carolina 
in 1887; they show in some detail his method of 
obtaining information about the South, and present 
pictures of contrasting sides of southern life, now 
overhimg by a threatening cloud of political con- 
fusion, now lightened by increasing thrift and 
prosperity: 

"Columbia, South Carolina, January, 1887. 

"Through the kindness of ex-Governor Thompson, 
of this State, I had the most pleasant access to his 
genial successor. Governor Richardson, whose appre- 
ciation of the importance of the Negro question is deep ; 
only thinking, responsible men in situations like his 
can so realize it, and he gave much time to its discus- 
sion. . . . 

"In the entire State there is a black majority of 
about 50,000. It is a postulate of politics that this 
majority shall not rule the State. Its record of corrupt, 
extravagant, high-handed control for eight years was 
far worse for the State than the period of the war, which 
destroyed the people's prosperity but did not hurt 
their manhood. The general demoralization during 
the rule of the blacks was unspeakably bad ; civilization 
could hardly stand up before it. The Negroes were 
not to blame when the expenses of one session of the 
Legislature amounted to $1,100,000 — the worst year 
of all (the Legislature now just closed, after a thirty- 
day session, cost but $53,000); they were led into mis- 
chief by unscrupulous white men. 

"A better feeling between the races is setting in. 
The Governor's plantations are in the black country, 
where there is security for all. Negroes are tried by 



2 68 Samuel Chapman Armstrong; 

jurors of their own race, but frequently prefer white 
ones. A black man's poverty never prevents his having 
able counsel in criminal cases. Some years ago dread 
of the incendiary was a widespread terror. Now the 
whites feel secure in the densest black surroundings. 
Nearly every Negro is a church member and has no 
opinion at all of the white man's religion, but morally 
he is very weak and needs more than anything else 
improvement at this point. This is the problem of his 
education. How shall it be accomplished? 

"My knowledge of things having been gained so far 
from Democratic sources, I found (in Charleston) a 
Negro Republican who is held in high estimation in the 
community and seemed a clear-headed, reliable man. 
He said that there are colored policemen in the com- 
munity as high as the grade of lieutenant; that one- 
third of the paid fire department of the city is colored ; 
that colored people on steamboats and railroads in 
this State have first-class seats when they pay the 
price. I noticed myself that a tidy, respectable class 
of colored people ride in the 'ladies' car,' and that only 
rough-looking ones were in the smoking car. The 
truth is that the entire Republican legislation on the 
civil rights of the blacks remains unaltered; much of it, 
however, is a dead letter. My informant said that 
the Negro vote is practically abolished, and at the last 
election only half the whites voted. . . . He him- 
self used to believe in universal suffrage, but did so no 
longer, from his experience of the ruinous taxation 
under Republican rule which made some colored men 
of property favor the election of Governor Hampton, 
of which he was glad. His taxes have been reduced 
from $77 to $22 a year. ... He was not satisfied 
with the condition of the black voter, but ' what could 



The Negfo and the South 269 

be done ? ' He thought the whites could, if they tried, 
divide the Negro vote. 

"I think the Negroes of South CaroHna will not suffer 
much from not voting — perhaps on the whole they are 
improving — and that they are unspeakably better off 
than when in power, but that, however, the principles 
of popular government in the State are in peril, and 
that real democracy may be going to destruction. 
An undue Congressional and electoral power is gained. 
Tampering with men's right to vote is most dangerous. 
Many who see nothing else to do speak of it with the 
deepest concern. I had no idea that this sentiment 
existed. All seems quite well now, but thinking men 
are thinking. They see that there is a black cloud over 
the future, and nowhere else is this better appreciated. 
. . . There appears to be a general feeling that 
an unimpeded Negro majority could repeat the terrible 
work of former years. . . . Men talk earnestly 
but not bitterly about it, with most kind and friendly 
feeling toward the blacks. The true thing for us to 
do fis to put ourselves in their places. What would 
we do if there? Only a Pharisee could be boastful. 
The only hope ^for the future is a vigorous effort to 
elevate the colored race. The only way out of it all 
is by admitting every thoughtful man to education — 
practical education that shall fit them for life. To let 
things go on indefinitely as they are will, I believe, in 
the end prove as disastrous to local civilization as was 
the reign of ignorance; for by a longer, slower way 
it will at last lead to anarchy. 

"Beaufort, South Carolina, is the region where the 
finest cotton in the world is grown; is the center of Negro 
politics in this State and one of the strongholds of the 
black man in the South. This place. Port Royal 
Island, and the other sea islands along the coast, are 



ijo Samuel Chapman Armstrong 

owned chiefly by Negroes, who outnumber the whites 
about ten to one, and who, through aid of the tax sales 
of the war period, were enabled to buy small farms of 
from ten to twenty acres at a very low rate. They are 
steadily buying more. The great majority live in their 
own homes. There is, I think, no Negro population in 
this country just so situated. There are many similarly 
located on the mainland close by, making a domain 
of blacks which in an interesting way illustrates a phase 
of the problem of this race. . . . 

"Showing me a very strong statement from a reporter 
of a northern paper about the stealing done by colored 
employees, a member of the firm of J. J, Dale & Com- 
pany, who do the largest business in the sea islands 
in ginning cotton, said that fifteen years' experience in 
buying cotton from the Negroes had taught the firm 
that not over five per cent, of them would cheat by 
adding water, salt or sand or overweighing the cotton 
in any way, and but one in twenty cheats in business 
dealings. With loo women employees in the gin-house, 
and constant opportunity to steal cotton, there is not 
two per cent, loss of stock. Dale & Company have 
eight large stores on these islands, have no one especially 
to watch their goods, and have had little loss. 

' ' Tax and crown land can be bought to an unlimited 
extent for $1.25 per acre on which the Negroes can dig 
out a living. ... I saw six considerable stores in three 
blocks of the principal street kept by Negroes. They 
have worked into the business life of the place and fill 
quite a number of important offices of trust and honor 
— and nobody is hurt. The whites as a class are far 
ahead, but the Negro movement — or tendency — is a 
healthy and encouraging one. There was more neat' 
ness than I had expected to find in the many little homes 
I looked into; the floors were universally clean; the 



The Negto and the Sottth 271 

buildings were often mere shells. Many have complained 
of these people's labor. I had a two hours' drive with 
Mr. Johnson, a white man, a pineapple planter, etc., 
who has had great experience through a long life with 
this labor and was well satisfied with it. He knew 
what was reasonable to expect, what allowance to make, 
and did a very large and successful business. As every- 
where else, the unsuccessful man must have his scape- 
goat, and it is very convenient to blame the black man. 

"There is a large Negro population in this State with 
little or no political organization. There is no agitation 
and little voting on their part; there is peace; the lamb 
lies down beside the lion. A leading educator of the 
Negro race told me in the presence of a prominent 
Democrat that the three blackest parishes or counties 
of Louisiana, wholly officer^ed and controlled by Negroes 
elected by the people, are among the best governed 
and most orderly in the State. Here is evidence that 
Negro majorities in exercise of their right to vote do 
not always make for unrighteousness. The Southerner 
admitted the statement, but said that the whites there 
have the wealth and give bonds for the colored officers, 
refusing to back up any in whom they have no confi- 
dence, and this keeps out bad men. This was admitted. 
It was refreshing to find that the races could live 
together so well." 

General Armstrong's belief that the country, 
since it had taken from the Negro his former means 
of support, owed him a chance to make his way, 
caused him to give his warm support for many years 
to the principle of national aid to Negro education. 
But before the year 1887 his feeling on this point 
underwent some modification, owing to the effective 



272 Samuel Chapman Armsttong 

way in which the southern States, headed by 
Virginia, were taking up the pubHc-school education 
of their own black children, and owing also to a 
growing conviction that any aid granted by the 
National Government would be poorly administered 
by the politicians through whose hands it must 
inevitably pass. 

He wrote concerning national aid to Negro 
education, and especially of the Blair bill, as 
follows : 

"The nation which freed and enfranchised 4,000,000 
slaves, thereby creating most serious and dangerous 
political conditions, has felt its responsibility, and 
has from time to time attempted to do something 
toward cultivating the intelligence and moral sense of 
its new-made citizens. The Blair bill is the last 
expression of this feeling and has failed. 

"Unquestionably a better measure might have been 
prepared. Too much was asked for in too short a 
time, and this mistake gave some justification to the 
cry of 'pauperizing the South.' The $15,000,000 
given by northern charity for southern, chiefly Negro, 
education has had a tremendous mental and moral 
result. The $3,500,000 of Government money used 
by the educational department of the Freedmen's 
Bureau between 1865 and 1870 was the means of teach- 
ing nearly 1,000,000 black children to read and write. 
It did broad foundation work for the institutions which 
were to follow it. In my opinion, wise and legitimate 
means can be found for using national aid against that 
worst enemy of republics, an ignorant population. 
The need of it for the enormous mass of illiterate blacks 



The Negfo and the South 273 

and whites is unquestionable; there is danger in neglect 
of them, and we who know what the trouble of the past 
has been see the trouble ahead and feel that the worst 
is yet to come." 

As the foregoing quotation shows, a wise measure, 
avoiding what he thought to be the errors of this 
bill, but directed to the same end, would have 
foimd a supporter in him. The agricultural colleges 
suggested by Senator Morrill approached nearer to 
his idea of what such a measure should be than 
any other. These, he thought, might become the 
starting-point for a larger development of the in- 
dustrial idea for Negroes under State or national 
auspices : 

"Senator Morrill's agricultural colleges have done 
more for the Negroes in the South than all the New 
England Senators and Congressmen combined ever did 
by legislation. 

"His agricultural college measures have been the 
best ever passed for our ex-slaves, for they make some 
provision for the practical education needed by the 
Negro that should fit him to earn a good living and get 
a home of his own. Able to do this, his vote is sure to 
be counted. United States troops are not needed to 
guard his approach to the ballot-box; but there is 
greatly needed a thorough system of agricultural 
schools, costing much less than armed men, among the 
southern blacks and some classes of whites. The 
entire country approves public expenditures made for 
agricultural colleges. Party men North and South 
write in support of it. Why not establish under the 
Department of Agriculture at Washington a system of 



274 Samwel Chapman Armstrong 

industrial schools that shall reach every Congressional 
district in the South?" 

All his experience and the continued observation 
of years only led him closer to his fundamental and 
first idea — namely, that the great need of the 
Negroes was character, expressed in thrift, industry 
and moral living, and that the only way to supply 
this need was found in a system of industrial com- 
bined with mental education. 



CHAPTER X 

Work for the Indian 

"The Negro makes public sentiment, but public 
sentiment makes the Indian. . . . The elevation 
of the Indians is clearly possible and is dependent on 
the will of the people; their failure will be more the 
white man's failure than their own." 

General Armstrong took every' opportunity to 
urge upon the people of the country, by public 
address, by magazine or newspaper articles, or by 
personal conversation, this view of the Indian 
question. He threw the force of his personality 
and influence into the work of convicting the 
conscience of the nation of criminal negligence 
toward the red men. The remedy for their troubles 
lay, he thought, in enlisting in their behalf a large 
and influential body of friends who would zealously 
guard their interests, enforce wise legislation, 
expose underhanded Congressional action, and 
contribute money where it was needed for their 
education or improvem.ent. 

"Will the red men finally have a constituency of 
faithful friends, like that of the blacks, who will steadily 
support the educational work for them?" he asks. 
"The Government is as good as the people will let it be; 

275 



276 Samoel Chapman Atmstrong 

to scold about the Indian policy is idle and useless. 
There is need of combined effort that shall press upon 
our legislators their duty to the red race, and persistently 
work for them at their own homes." 

General Armstrong was able to bring this view 
into wider proniinence than heretofore. His dramatic 
instinct that seized upon striking facts for relation, 
his readiness with a practical solution of immediate 
difficulties, his burning eagerness to help the unfor- 
tunate, and the wide circle of friends already inter- 
ested in his work made him a most valuable acquisi- 
tion to the ranks of the friends of the Indian, 

It will be remembered that a few of that race had 
come to the Hampton school in 1878, sent from 
barracks in St. Augustine, Florida, where they were 
held as prisoners of war. Since that time the 
Government had granted a fixed sum yearly for the 
support of a limited number, and a group of Indians 
numbering about 150 had become a part of the 
Hampton school. 

That institution was peculiarly adapted to the 
training of Indians, owing to the fact that English 
was the language of instruction and conversa- 
tion, and also in no small measure to the steady 
tone created by 500 hard-working and loyal 
Negro students. "Sending Indians to a Negro 
school is like putting raw recruits into an old 
regiment," said General Armstrong. The moral 
atmosphere at Hampton, too, he felt to be essential 
to Indian development. "Their education should 



Woffc for the Indian 277 

be first for the heart, then for health, and last for 
the mind," he said. That an individual Indian 
s"hould be civilized was barely, from his point of 
view, worth the expenditure of money and energy 
bestowed on it at Hampton; but that each Indian 
should feel under obligation to pass on to his people 
the benefits he had received was a result worthy 
of the best effort. Hampton could create the 
desire for service, the sense of moral obligation in 
the Negro, and why not, he thought, in the Indian ? 

"Pupils should be taught that they have a duty to 
their people, that education is more than a preparation 
for their own support and decent living, but that they 
have a great work which they must begin by writing 
home; they must expect to teach by precept and 
example, the more excellent way." 

"The Indians are grown-up children," said he. "We 
are a thousand years ahead of them in the line of 
development. Education is not progress, but is a 
means of it. A brain full of book knowledge, whose 
physical basis is the product of centuries of barbarism, 
is an absurdity that we do not half realize, from our 
excessive traditional reverence for school and college 
training. We forget that knowledge is not power 
unless it is digested and assimilated. Savages have 
good memories; they acquire, but do not comprehend; 
they devour, but do not digest knowledge. They have 
no conception of mental discipline. A well-balanced 
mind is attained only after centuries of development."* 

"The very atmosphere of civilization is a revelation 
to them. Respectability here is in the air; it is a habit; 

* " Indian Education in the East." A speech deUvered in 1S80. 



278 Samuel Chapman Armstrong 

you inherit it; it is the fashion and it pays. Among 
savages, degradation is in the air and in the blood ; it is 
customary and comfortable, almost universal, and virtue 
is a cross instead of a crown. The civilized man is 
honest not because he is good, but because it pays to be 
honest; but it took ten generations to find it out. Not 
till a race compiehends the practical bearing of integrity 
will it practise it. Knowing it is not comprehending it." 

He often compared the two races as they mingled 
in the school life of Hampton : 

"The severe discipline of slavery strengthened a 
weak race. Professed friendship for a strong one has 
weakened it. A cruel semblance of justice has done 
more harm than direct oppression could have done. 
The Negro is strong, the Indian weak, because the one 
is trained to labor and the other is not. I am told that 
the ex-slaves of the Indian Territory are now much 
more prosperous than their former red-skinned owners. 
One has had too little and the other too much freedom. 
Both are now eager to improve; both will make the 
most of their opportunities for practical education. 
Both have capacity to become citizens and perform all 
practical duties. With both the question of progress 
is only one of opportunities to provide and then settle 
the question." 

"The surroundings of the ex-slave are far more 
sympathetic and helpful than those of our western 
wards, whose large possessions and resultant relations 
to the neighboring country have created many compli- 
cated questions. The war, with its terrible possibilities, 
has resulted in peace and good-will among all our people, 
while a hundred years of well-meaning policy toward 



Work for the Indian 279 

the Indians have just brought us to a measure which 
recognizes their manhood." * 

" Civihzing Indians and Negroes together is novel, but 
hopeful, and it keeps us busy ; it is very stimulating, for 
success is not to be taken for granted. We shall see." f 

He never perceived that it was more the influence 
of his own personality than any other force at 
Hampton that tended to make responsible beings 
out of those Indian boys and girls just raising them- 
selves from barbarism. He commanded their admi- 
ration where they would have passed by with scant 
notice many men equally well intentioned and able. 
They could understand the language of flashing eye 
and quick gesture, as they remained at Hampton. 
They could soon understand also the simple questions 
which he put to his audiences, and it was as often, 
in proportion, that an Indian answered them as a 
Negro. They enjoyed mightily the scenery, the 
soft blue waters, and the passing boats; the songs 
of the Negroes with their passionate rhythms and 
martial choruses stirred them to the quick. General 
Armstrong planned wisely when he admitted them 
to the heart of his work; it was heart more than 
intellectual cultivation that they needed, and 
Hampton was essentially for many years an expres- 
sion in brick and mortar, in flesh and blood, of 
General Armstrong's own inner self. 

While at Hampton they gained a general knowl- 

* " Indian Education in the East." 

t Address, " The Future of the American Negro," deKvered at 
Omaha, 1887. 



28o Samtiel Chapman Armstfong 

edge of several trades, and most of them acquired a 
mastery of one. Their work at school was planned 
in such a way as to fit them to repair their own 
homes, to build their own carts and tools, or to 
engage in some occupation for self-support. General 
Armstrong thought that this manual work, which was 
carried on under instruction and was obligatory on 
every Indian boy, even more essential to them than 
to the Negroes. Owing to their inherited nomadic 
instincts a distaste for labor was common among 
them, but in the changed conditions prevailing at 
their western homes they must now either go to 
work or go to the wall; and half recognizing this 
alternative, they received their enforced industrial 
education with composure. 

The test of work for the Indians General Arm- 
strong felt to be not what they received at school, 
but their record on their return home. As he said : 

"The question is no longer, Can the Indian be civi- 
lised? but, What becomes of the civilized Indian? The 
Indians are where they are; a few may be taken away, 
educated, and Hve among the whites, but only a few; this 
will barely touch, but not settle the Indian question. 
The work to be done is yet at the reservation." 

It has long been the policy of the Government to 
group Indians within defined tracts known as 
"reservations," each of which is presided over by 
an agent appointed by the President. Each agency 
contains one or more schools which provide for the 



Wotk for the Indian 



2»I 



education of Indian children, and a depot of supplies 
from which each adult can draw a certain ration, 
including both necessities and luxuries, free of 
charge. Since the year 1887 this policy has been 
supplemented by the provisions of the Dawes Land 
in Severalty bill.* 

General Armstrong took many trips among the 
reservations in order to ascertain with his own eyes 
what were the conditions in the midst of which his 
returned pupils were to live. He found much in 
western life that differed from the current western 
and eastern opinion of it, saying: 

"If the West knows anything, it knows that you 
can't improve the prairie Indian. Crossing the conti- 
nent twice of late, I found the universal creed to be, 
'There is no good Indian but a dead one,' which has 
been adopted by over half the intelligent people of 
the East." f 

These tours were taken in the company of friends 
or of some chance traveling companion; and in 
riding or driving over the prairies from one reserva- 
tion to another, often camping at night, he found 
pleasant reminiscences of army life and gained 
fresh strength. Of one of these tours, half for rest 
and pleasure, half for purposes of observation, 
he writes: 

* The Dawes Land in Severalty bill provided that any Indian 
expressing a wish to take up land in individual ownership should 
have 160 acres apportioned to him from the reservation for his 
own private use, inalienable for twenty-five years. By taking 
up this land he became a citizen of the United States. 

t " Indian Education in the East." 



282 Samuel Chapman Armstfong 

"The weather has been cool and our gallops over the 
plains in the midst of surrounding mountains have been 
exhilarating. Such appetites as we have had ! The 
memory of feasts of brook trout, black-tailed deer, 
wild duck, ending with flapjacks and maple syrup, 
will not soon fade. The hunter of our party is the 
Harvard graduate. Our ex-Confederate captain has 
a genius for making tea — the charm of such life makes 
every camp seem the pleasantest of all. Whenever we 
gather around the blazing fire near some river or on the 
edge of the woods and the sun is setting in glory and the 
plain stretches far away till it meets a distant mountain, 
we think we have never found it so pleasant before." 

And of one especial trip: 

"A three hours' drive over this [Devil's Lake] reser- 
vation was one of my most encouraging and inspiring 
experiences of Indian life and progress. In every direc- 
tion as far as the eye could reach, except where the 
ground was broken and wooded, were dotted log houses, 
beside each one a tipi, or conical tent, of smoke-browned 
cotton cloth, graceful and picturesque, where in sum- 
mer the Indians cook and sometimes live. Of the 
1,000 people 210 are farmers, heads of families, scattered 
over the reserve just as white men would be settled, 
cultivating from 100 to 200 acres apiece. 

"The climax of my experience was in seeing a 
McCormick self-binder and reaper driven with two 
horses by an Indian farmer around splendid fields of 
yellow grain. All I could say was : ' This is the end of 
it.' True, the red man does not put in his full day's 
work like the white man, and does not hesitate to take 
a good long midday rest; but then, he is on his own 
reaping-machine, harvesting the fruits of his own labor, 



Woffc for the Indian 283 

which he takes to the agency mill to be ground and 
brings back in flour. 

"I can never forget this afternoon's drive among 
the Indian farms. The air was perfect, every breath 
a delight; far and near fields of grain were waving in 
the wind, while the slant rays of the setting stm made 
their surfaces glisten like jewels as they rose and fell 
under the soft touch of the breeze. The redeemed, 
disenthralled and regenerate Indian, guiding the compli- 
cated, brainy machine — one of forty on the reservation, 
each as a rule bought by two or three men together — 
seemed fairly established in manhood. The hard 
work is done. . . ." 

He saw all sides of life among the Indians, and 
appreciated the strength as well as the weakness 
of their surviving savage customs. From Standing 
Rock Agency, Dakota, he wrote: 

"The picturesqueness of Indian life was at its climax 
when we went to see a modified ' grass dance ' (all others 
being suppressed), now allowed once in two weeks in 
the afternoon. An outer circle some hundred feet in 
diameter was formed of onlookers of both sexes, within 
which sat on their heels about eighty braves in full ball 
costume ready to spring to the center at the sound of 
the drum and chorus of men and squaws whose quaint 
barbaric cadences, alternating with stirring staccato 
cries, in perfect time, seemed to inspire the dancers as 
much as any orchestra could the civilized votaries of 
this pleasure. . . . All chant or sing or shout, 
while strings of innumerable small bells on arm and 
leg and body make a tremendous tinkling as the dancers 
go madly round, now erect, now in a bending posture, 



284 Samwel Chapman Armstrong 

iraitating the various attitudes of the hunter or warrior. 
After about five minutes of these wild doings, all fall 
back to their places and squat for a while. The leader 
rises and explains something or recites the exploits or 
generosity of somebody, and they all go at it again. 
A fire was lighted, and the performance of the curiously 
costumed, painted, plumed, richly feathered, splendidly 
built half savages was weird and brilliant as they 
pranced around it. I cannot see that the severest 
criticism of moralists and satirists on civilized ball- 
rooms would apply here. The dance was out of doors, 
and the whole scene as the sun went down — the infinite 
prairie beyond, the gumbo hills in one direction, the 
Missouri River winding away to the left, the glory of 
color • in the west, the strained, intense and brilliant 
action before us — made it all seem like another world. 
Unpicturesque civilization will conquer all this. One's 
mystic instincts are singularly awakened in the remote 
West. Nature and her spirit are felt here as nowhere 
else." 

His mature observations of the system of caring 
for Indians adopted by the Government led him to 
certain fixed conclusions, both as to the evils and 
the benefits of the system and as to the means by 
which it could be improved. He regarded the 
system of distributing rations to the Indians which 
was in vogue between 1880 and 1890 as thoroughly 
wrong. Many Indians, he saw, were obliged to 
travel long distances, leaving their work at home 
in order to reach the distributing stations. When 
arrived at the agency they met a number of other 
idle braves, awaiting their turn, so that the agency 



Wotk for the Indian 285 

became a breeding-place for vice and gossip. Now 
that the buffalo and the salmon, the natural food 
supply of the wild tribes, were gone, some aid must 
be given to the Indian, but he thought that it 
should be in the form of farm tools, or, if rations 
must be allowed at all, that they should be given 
as a reward of merit. 

Here lay the fundamental economic error of the 
Government policy — that the alternative of work 
or starvation, which spurs on the white man to 
effort, does not exist for the Indian. 

"This endowment of food and land without work is 
like a millstone around his neck," he said. 

"The thousand Sioux at Devil's Lake Agency, 
Dakota, have in three years been all brought near to 
the point of self-support, because (by a special provision) 
they were fed and helped only as they worked. The 
rest of the Sioux are worse off than ever, for the lazy 
and intractable among them fare as well as any, and it 
would be better to destroy than to emasculate them. 

"The treaties that provide food, etc., for Indians 
state most emphatically that education and ultimate 
self-support are their end. But this result is put farther 
off than ever. ... It would be right, I believe, to 
deny to lazy, intractable Indians at least sugar, coffee 
and tobacco — the luxuries, letting them have beef, 
flour, etc., until they should do better. Remarkable 
results, which I have personally witnessed, were wrought 
among the Shoshone Indians in this way. Looking 
at this great pauperizing system, which has no parallel 
in our time, which would make a mob of the poor of 
our cities and is ruinous to the red man, I believe that 



2 86 Samuel Chapman Armstrong 

any revolution in our Indian management is desirable 
that would change it to a generous, fair help of the 
Indians, . . . putting wise pressure on the idle 
and thriftless." 

He believed that the reservation system contained 
the germ of the wisest care of the Indians possible 
under the then existing conditions. 

" I am convinced of the truth," he said, "that reserva- 
tions under good management afford the best conditions 
to prepare the red race for citizenship — develop, not 
destroy them." 

To find the desired good management for the 
reservations General Armstrong thought the most 
difficult task for the reformer. He advocated 
strongly the appointment of army officers to the 
post of Indian agents: 

"Civilian agents (excepting a few too valuable ever 
to lose to the cause) are a failure, with which the par- 
simony of Congress in giving meager salaries has had 
much to do. A plan should be devised which shall 
give to competent men the details of the difficult, 
delicate task of Indian civilization, never to be accom- 
plished while a legislative body attempts executive 
work. The most natural and simple way is to make 
the Commissioner of Indian Affairs an independent, 
responsible officer at the head of a department, with 
ample discretion; and to create an educational bureau, 
with a strong man at its head. The present super- 
intendent of Indian education barely appears as a 
factor to the problem. 

"The fact that army experience is so much at the 



Wotk for the Indian 287 

basis of Indian education in the East is significant, for 
it can do just as well in the West. There is a class of 
men in the army, now that its fighting days are over, 
who can be spared to help settle the Indian question 
and are better than any other for the purpose; because 
they are, and only so far as they are, educated, experi- 
enced men of high character and capacity, they have 
many advantages of position." 

Note. — It is interesting to note that since General Armstrong's 
death (in 1893) the experiment of employing army officers as 
agents has been tried, but without the success which he hoped 
for. His reason for advocating their trial was that he felt them 
to be men of more tried character than the available civilian, but 
the younger generation of officers, unschooled in Indian warfare, 
proved unsatisfactory to the friends of the Indians. 

The difficulties attending the constant change of 
administration in agencies and schools under our 
political system were very great. 

"Politicians have faintly comprehended and sadly 
muddled wise work for the Indian," he said, "and with 
good intentions have made the best men reluctant to 
take hold of their education. 

"I find the Government schools are generally good, 
suffering, however, from frequent change of teachers, 
which means inexperience and occasionally worse than 
that. The denominational schools have a marked 
advantage in the character of their teachers and because 
the religious element cannot be safely omitted from 
any attempt to educate the Indian. They are also a 
valuable stimulus to the Government schools, furnishing 
in many cases church facilities and influences, of which 
the latter often avail themselves, while they create 
a moral atmosphere which is a tonic to whole com- 
munities." 



288 Samuel Chapman Atmstfong 

In a private letter written in 1889 he says: 

"General conditions more than schools have, I think, 
moved the Indian, but best of all, behind all and more 
than all, missionary work has helped the Indian, and 
only in relation with that in the West can we expect 
much good from our eastern work." 

But with all the good work that the missionary 
schools were doing, and with all the stimulus that 
well-managed reservation life might afford, there 
would always be a few young men and women who 
would profit by an eastern education: 

"They will not return home scared by our great guns 
and arsenals, but stimulated by contact with the 
spirit that lies at the bottom of our progress — the 
spirit of hard work. They must see civilization to 
comprehend it."* 

Acting on this belief, he sent West yearly some 
representative deputed to collect a few young men 
and women who gave promise of ability to act as 
leaders and teachers; returning the best of them to 
their homes in the course of three, four or five years, 
acquainted with civilized ways, able to earn their 
living and ambitious to serve their people. 

In general, he says: 

"The situation is far from hopeless; from my own 
point of view it is encouraging, but it does not admit 
of much delay in action. No honest man can touch 

* " Indian Education in the East." 



Wofk for the Indian 289 

Indian affairs at any point without at first a sense of 
humiliation, a consciousness of defeat before he takes 
up arms, which is by no means so illogical an experi- 
ence as it sounds. There are no precedents; we have 
nothing to trust to but the common sense of those with 
whom the power lies. And yet every day sees a change 
in the direction of development rather than of decay. 

"Apply sanctified common sense to the Indian 
problem, and you will save them in spite of the steam- 
engine and the threats of fate." * 

"To stop the issue of rations, introducing in its place 
some reasonable system of assistance similar to that 
already tested among the Sioux; to complete the 
surveys of the Indian lands, through trustworthy and 
capable men who will minimize the inevitable danger; 
to improve and increase the facilities for education, 
especially in industrial lines and under Christian influ- 
ences — these are the demands which the Indian would 
make for himself if he knew his own needs." f 

With the passage of the Dawes bill granting 
land in severalty with prospective citizenship a 
new era for the Indian dawned. Before that time 
General Armstrong would have had all the energies 
of the public directed toward the formulation by 
Congress of a definite and wise Indian policy which 
should ultimately result in citizenship and large 
educational measures for the Indians. The Dawes 
bill once passed, he believed that a conscientious 
and skilled administration of its provisions, a work 
almost purely executive, was the end to be sought, 

* " Indian Education in the East." 
t Letter to Southern Workman. 



290 Samuel Chapman Atmstfong 

As a permanent educational policy to be followed 
for the benefit of the Indians, he believed that 
normal industrial education in the East for a chosen 
few and many agency schools under religious 
influences in the West were the measures most 
needed, and to the pleading of these causes he gave 
much of the best effort of his maturer years. 



CHAPTER XI 
Last Years. 1893 

The year 1890 was recognized by Armstrong as 
a turning-point in his life. In his annual report 
he speaks of the accomplishment of the main objects 
for which he had striven for twenty years — namely, 
the recognition of the necessity for industrial train- 
ing for backward races and of the moral value of 
coeducation and productive labor for the Negroes, 
and the building up of Hampton so that it was able 
to do its work as an " experiment station. " Hamp- 
ton had but a small endowment, it was true, but 
it had a large circle of faithful friends and an envi- 
able reputation. ' ' No man ever realized his ideals 
more fully than I have," he said. 

In the fall of 1890 he was married to Miss Mary 
Alice Ford, of Lisbon, New Hampshire, who for 
some years had been a teacher at Hampton, an event 
which opened again to him a possibility of home life. 
A sense of attainment and of the honor that crowns 
successful effort now came pleasantly to him, and was 
augmented by a visit to his old home in the Hawaiian 
Islands in the summer of 189 1. It was not his first 
return home. In 1881 he had taken a trip thither 
for rest and refreshment, and had returned, bring- 

291 



292 Samuel Chapman Atmstrong 

ing with him across the continent half a dozen sugar- 
cane stalks and several cocoanuts, in order that his 
little girls might taste his favorite eatables in a 
condition approaching their natural freshness; but 
now he went in more serious vein to deliver a speech 
at the fiftieth anniversary of his old school, Punahou, 
to bid farewell to his mother, who, now eighty-seven 
years old and feeble, was living quietly at San 
Jose, California, and to show to his daughters, who 
accompanied him, some of the scenes and friends 
of his youth. Nevertheless, it was a time of jollity, 
rest and triumphal recognition of his work by his 
contemporaries, and he returned from it in the fall 
of 1 89 1 to take up his work with fresh vigor and his 
new-found home life, brightened by the birth of a 
daughter in October, with delight. 

But the physical refreshment proved to be only 
temporary; a strange fatigue began to creep over 
him.* On November 27th, while delivering a speech 
at Stoneham, Massachusetts, he succumbed to a 
shock of paralysis and for several weeks lay at the 
Parker House, Boston, very near death's door. 

He was quite conscious of his danger, and may 
sometimes have wished, as he must die at last, to 
go quickly then, for he had always had the natural 
desire of a strong man to die without a weakening 



* This was accompanied, however, with a sort of mental stimu- 
lation. It is related of him that only a few nights before the 
collapse he talked with two friends in New York inore brilliantly 
with a display of wit more pyrotechnic and an insight deeper 
than ever before. 



Last Yeafs, J 893 293 

of his powers — "in harness," as his own father had 
died. Nevertheless, he determined to get well, 
announced that what had befallen him was for the 
best, as everything always was, and worked as vig- 
orously to gain strength as he had worked to build 
up Hampton. In course of time he was moved 
back to Hampton, and there gradually grew able 
to pull himself upstairs or to be wheeled over the 
grounds as rapidly as he could persuade his Negro 
attendant to push him. In these days of enforced 
leisure his figure became a very familiar one to the 
boys in the workshops as he rolled quickly up, 
signalled with his cane to stop, and sat, the black 
coat dropping over shoulders no longer able to hold 
it squarely and black slouched hat pulled over his 
eyes. Here he would sit cheerfully talking with 
students and foremen many a fine forenoon. As 
a general thing, he went to his office and assumed 
the care of his correspondence for a part of the day, 
sitting, when not called upon to make an effort, 
quite silent, concentrating all his strength on this 
his last fight — a fight not with kindly death, but 
with powers that threatened to fail him before cer- 
tain self-appointed tasks were done. 

For a year and a half the struggle against phys- 
ical weakness went on. In the fall of 1893 he took 
up his routine work at the school, but the con- 
tinuous effort proved exhausting and he was forced 
to go South for three months, to return in the early 
spring only slightly benefited by the trip, though a 



294 Samuel Chapman Atmstfong 

visit to Tuskegee Institute and the birth of a son 
during the spring made the time a memorable one. 

It was the time of the rendezvous of the fleets of 
all nations prior to the naval review of 1893 in New 
York Harbor. He had organized, as was his wont, 
excursions and sailing parties among them. On 
the night before the fleets were to leave the harbor 
he chartered a tug and sloop, invited a party of 
friends, and made a tour of the silent fleet. They 
stopped before each battle-ship, towering black 
in the starlight, with only a watch pacing to and 
fro to be seen, and as the boat drifted past the 
singers sang the national airs of each vessel (which 
they had learned in preparation for some such 
occasion), followed by some of their own quaint, 
stirring choruses. The effect was magical: from 
bow to stern white-clad figures poured out in the 
blaze of electric lights, and the serenaders were 
greeted with hearty cheers and thanks. General 
Armstrong sat silent all the while in the stem of 
the tug, wrapped, as usual, in his cape, his snowy 
hair gleaming, in the half light, over deep-set eyes 
full of tears which he could not control. Time 
was, and his spirit was as young as then, when he 
would have been leading the songs and cheers on 
the sloop. 

The next day was fixed for the departure of the 
ships, and from far and near the people gathered to 
watch the spectacle. Armstrong rose at six o'clock, 
drove several miles to Old Point Comfort, and chose 



Last Years. J 893 295 

a seat in the top of a lighthouse, whose steep stairs 
he climbed with laboring steps, to witness the 
magnificent scene. It was a stinny morning in May, 
The foreign ships, each escorted by one of our own 
White Squadron, rounded Old Point Comfort, 
turned and headed for the ocean, each as she passed 
the saluting gims of Fortress Monroe playing her 
national air, which mingled over the blue waters 
with the strains of our own national songs played 
by bands on shore. 

That night he was stricken with symptoms which 
could only presage death. During the intervals of 
comparative freedom from pain he sat in his chair 
overlooking the waters near him and the school 
grovmds, but gazed only at the passing boats; he 
made no inquiry concerning school matters, and 
said decisively between his long hours of silence: 
"My work is done. I must go." He wished and 
prayed only to die, and on May nth his desire 
was fulfilled. 

After a military funeral, his body was laid, 
by his own request, among those of his students, 
Negro and Indian, who had died at the school, and 
the spot was marked by a block of Williamstown 
granite at the one end and Hawaiian volcano rock 
at the other. 

General Armstrong's spirit still lives in his work, 
a spirit and a work not for his own time alone, but 
for all time ; not for the Negro and Indian only, but 
for races yet to be bom. 



296 Samtfel Chapman Afmsttong 

He lived, mentally and spiritually, in a world of 
immaterial things, though his daily contact was 
with the most practical sides of life. All through 
his crude youthful years he was maturing a deeper 
conviction that spiritual facts were the only reali- 
ties. As he grew older this deeply spiritual, almost 
mystic tone became dominant in him, and in his 
later years he became, as has well been said, "a 
sort of saint." * He was drawn toward the imma- 
terial side of everything; was interested in all forms 
of belief which emphasized the power of mind over 
matter; enjoyed reading Thomas a Kempis and the 
lives of the fathers of the Church. His favorite 
philosophers were Plato and Amiel, and among 
his most treasured books was a copy of Amiel' s 
Journal, which he filled with markings and often 
read of a quiet Sunday afternoon; though this 
philosophical tendency never disturbed his robust 
common sense, for he never forgot that men and 
things must be dealt with as they are, not as they 
might be. He wrote: 

"The longer I live, the less I think and fear about 
what the world calls success; the more I tremble for 
true success, for the perfection and beauty of the inner 
life, for the purity and sanctity of the soul, which is as 
a temple. As I grow older I feel the need of getting 
at the root of the matter — of being sure of the nearness 
of God, of being free from all the mistiness and doubts 
and of throwing the increasing cares of life on Him." 

♦John H. Dennison in Atlantic Monthly, February, 1894. 



Last Years. J893 297 

Prayer was his meat and drink; he spent a tenth 
of his busiest days at prayer: 

"After all, prayer is a mystery; but this we do know, 
that looking back upon our lives and remembering 
what we have asked for, we can say that all the real 
good we have asked for has been granted. When 
Christ repeated 'And whatsoever ye shall ask in 
my name, that will I do, that the Father may be 
glorified in the Son,' * He spoke as the holy and pure 
One whose 'whatsoever' could not refer to all sorts 
of things, for that would be absurd, but to the 
whole range of heavenly gifts which He doubtless will 
give away to those who ask aright, but in His good 
time and in a way that we may not discern till long 
after the gift. 

"One scripture is to be interpreted by another; a 
clear head and common sense are, I believe, the best 
means of right study of the Bible, and hence the 
reason why so many illiterates — even babes — speak 
and see wondrous things, while we who are more culti- 
vated bring our reasoning powers to bear and are 
sadly perplexed. I think, too, that the state of the 
heart has as much to do with getting at the more 
intricate Bible truths as that of the head. It is true 
there is a difficulty as to prayer; God knows and does 
all, yet asks us to pray for what we want; there is in 
the compound or complex action of this and the human 
will on the wants of life an absolute mystery; I cannot 
explain it, but elsewhere He says: 'I will give you rest.' 
We need the spirit of little children. The moment we 
begin to search into the mysteries of God's truths we 
are bewildered. Yet because truth comes from God 
we should expect not to comprehend it." 

*I, John, xiv, 13. 



29^ Samuel Chapman Armstrong: 

His thoughts were often directed toward the 
next life: 

"Body and trees decay, but each expresses a thought 
of God that continues to be expressed in consecrated 
forms. A large amount of the happiness of the next 
life will, I take it, be mental, and none keener than the 
perception of identities. Do we do justice to this 
wonderful source of delight — I mean the noble mental 
occupations of the next world? I look upon much 
sincere pious writing about heaven as little more 
reliable than 'old wives' fables.' 

"I sometimes wonder how Paradise can be Paradise 
simply because it is Paradise. It is the end of the 
long, toilsome journey. But man was made to act, 
not to rest. Yet here he longs for it. 'Rest' is the 
sweetest word in our language. But there is no 
fatigue there. 

"No wonder that tireless, vigilant, splendid soldier, 
General Stonewall Jackson, as he was dying said: 
'Let's cross over the river and rest under the shade 
of the trees ! ' 

" But when we get there — what ? Really lying off after 
a moral victory in this earthly strife ? No ! We will 
soon realize that there are galleries far above us to be 
occupied by those whose field of action is the universe 
when they shall have served well in the heavenly hosts ; 
a while under the trees, perhaps, and then ' Fall in for 
Jupiter' trumpeted out by some angel, and a squadron 
of bright spirits shall fly from the groves to some world 
where they are needed to help others who are trying 
in the midst of conditions like ours here to work out 
their own salvation. 

"We must keep at it forever. The world moves 
above and below." 



Last Years. J 893 299 

After his death the following memoranda were 
found among his private papers : 

MEMORANDA 

"Now when all is bright, the family together, and 
there is nothing to alarm and very much to be thankful 
for, it is well to look ahead and, perhaps, to say the 
things that I should wish known should I suddenly 
die. 

"I wish to be buried in the school graveyard, among 
the students, where one of them would have been put 
had he died next. 

"I wish no monument or fuss whatever over my 
grave; only a simple headstone — no text or senti- 
ment inscribed, only my name and date. I wish the 
simplest funeral service, without sermon or attempt at 
oratory — a soldier's funeral. 

"I hope there will be enough friends to see that the 
work of the school shall continue. Unless some shall 
make sacrifice for it, it cannot go on, 

"A work that requires no sacrifice does not count 
for much in fulfilling God's plans. But what is com- 
monly called sacrifice is the best, happiest use of one's 
self and one's resources — the best investment of time, 
strength and means. He who makes no such sacrifice 
is most to be pitied. He is a heathen, because he knows 
nothing of God. 

"In the school the great thing is not to quarrel; to 
pull all together; to refrain from hasty, unwise words 
and actions; to unselfishly and wisely seek the best 
good of all ; and to get rid of workers whose temperaments 
are unfortunate — whose heads are not level ; no matter 
how much knowledge or culture they may have. Can- 
tankerousness is worse than heterodoxy. 



300 Samtjel Chapman Armstfong 

"I wish no effort at a biography of myself made. 
Good friends might get up a pretty good story, but it 
would not be the whole truth. The truth of a life 
usually lies deep down — we hardly know ourselves — 
God only does. I trust His mercy. The shorter 
one's creed the better. 'Simply to Thy cross I cling' 
is enough for me. 

"I am most thankful for my parents, my Hawaiian 
home, for war experiences, and college days at Williams, 
and for life and work at Hampton. Hampton has 
blessed me in so many ways; along with it have come 
the choicest people of this country for my friends and 
helpers, and then such a grand chance to do something 
directly for those set free by the war, and, indirectly, 
for those who were conquered; and Indian work has 
been another great privilege. 

"Few men have had the chance that I have had. I 
never gave up or sacrificed anything in my life — have 
been, seemingly, guided in everything. 

"Prayer is the greatest thing in the world. It keeps 
us near to God — my own prayer has been most weak, 
wavering, inconstant, yet has been the best thing I 
have ever done. I think this is universal truth — what 
comfort is there in any but the broadest truth ? 

"I am most curious to get a glimpse at the next 
world. How will it seem ? Perfectly fair and perfectly 
natural, no doubt. We ought not to fear death. It 
is friendly. 

"The only pain that comes at the thought of it is 
for my true, faithful wife and blessed, dear children. 
But they will be brave about it all and in the end 
stronger. They are my greatest comfort. 

"Hampton must not go down. See to it, you who 
are true to the black and red children of the land and 
to just ideas of education. 



Last Yeats. J893 301 

"The loyalty of old soldiers and of my students has 
been an unspeakable comfort, 

"It pays to follow one's best light — to put God and 
country first, ourselves afterward, 

"Taps has just sounded. S. C. Armstrong. 

"Hampton, Virginia, New Year's Eve, 1890." 



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